This assignment is Tuesday at 1 AM
Unit 2 Discussion Causation and Threats to Validity Part I: Read the following statements and consider what you learned from this week's readings. For each statement, identify a) the implied independent variable, b) the implied dependent variable, and c) validity threats that might alternatively explain the relationship between the variables: 1. Hot weather results in more crime. 2. Full moons cause boating accidents. 3. More police equals less crime. Part II: Consider the following applied research scenario and answer the questions that follow: In 2015, border patrol agents in the Yuma (Arizona) sector began using drones along the border between the U.S. and Mexico. To examine the effects of using drones, researchers recorded yearly border patrol apprehensions between 2015 and 2019. They also collected Yuma's yearly reported crime rates from the FBI during this time period, as well as demographic data from the U.S. Census. As illustrated in charts, the number of apprehensions in 2019 was nearly 10 times the amount in 2015, while the crime rate decreased by 36%. During the same time, Census data showed that the proportion of persons aged 65 and older in Yuma increased by 46%. Given these results, the researchers concluded that the drones caused apprehensions to go up and caused crime to go down. They also concluded that the age of criminals was increasing in Yuma and likely in other areas of Arizona. · What is the unit of analysis in Chart 1 and Chart 2? · Describe one threat to internal validity and one threat to external validity in the study. · Explain how the researchers have committed an ecological fallacy, citing the readings to support your answers. · Give an example of a research hypothesis for the border patrol scenario given here. Remember to cite and reference your sources. NB: Below is one of my classmates’ assignment. View it and see how this discussion is to be done. Since you do not have Chapter 1 & 2 to do part II, just paraphrase my classmate’s Part II solution. Hello everyone, I really struggled with this week’s discussion post, so I welcome any and all feedback. PART I: For each of the following statements, I have identified the implied independent and dependent variables, as well as validity threats that may explain the relationships. · Hot weather results in more crime. · Independent variable – hot weather · Dependent variable – increased crime · Validity threats – There has been documentation of relationships between weather conditions and aggressive crime occurrences. Weekends tend to have higher crime rates as well as the use of alcohol is a reason for increased crime (Butke & Sheridan, 2010). Therefore, warm weekends + more alcohol usage = more crime. · Full moons cause boating accidents. · Independent variable – full moons · Dependent variable – boating accidents · Validity threats – Before modern electricity and lighting, the full moon provided light at nighttime which affected people’s sleep habits. This theory carries on today and causes sleep deprivation leading to psychological issues and poor judgement decisions, including those poor decisions on the water (Britt, 2016). · More police equals less crime. · Independent variable – Increased policing · Dependent variable – Decreased crime · Validity threats – It is the assumption that more active police forces present in a community at a time will be able to catch more criminals in the act. Criminals may be less apt to commit crimes if there is an increase in policing. However, increasing the number of police officers may not be a cost-effective solution since it is harder to weed out the “bad” cops and there may be an increase in police misconduct (Klick & MacDonald, 2020) PART II: The units of analysis for the study presented in charts 1 and 2 represent the number of apprehensions, or individuals’ arrests, between the years 2015 and 2019. The second chart represents the number of individual crimes that occurred per every 100,000 people. An internal threat would be the accuracy of the drone equipment used and the reliability of the results. An external threat would be the time of day, season, or day of the week that may factor in the results. An ecological fallacy is a potential of making wrong assumptions based only on the data presented (Babbie & Maxfield, 2018). One of the fallacies is the assumption that the age of people participating in criminal activity was 65 and older. Another fallacy is the idea of how many people that committed crimes were re-offenders. A hypothesis statement for this study is: Drone usage between the United States and Mexico increases the number of individuals being apprehended for their crimes, which then results in the lowering rates of crimes committed. References: Babbie, E., & Maxfield, M. (2018). Research Methods for Criminal Justice and Criminology. Boston: Cenage Learning. Britt, R. (2016, November 11). It's Just a Phase: The Supermoon Won't Drive You Mad. Retrieved from Live Science. Butke, P., & Sheridan, S. (2010, April 1). An Analysis of the Relationship Between Weather and Agressive Crime. Weather, Climate, and Society, 2(2). Klick, J., & MacDonald, J. (2020, August 4). Hire More Cops. Retrieved from NYC Journal.