Elementary statistics in criminal justice research

Elementary Statistics in Criminal Justice Research, Fourth Edition, provides an introduction to statistics for students in criminal justice and criminology. Created specifically for students who many not have strong backgrounds in mathematics, the text focuses primarily on the statistical theories and methods that criminal justice students need to understand. This text was adapted from the best-selling Elementary Statistics in Social Research, and provides broad and accessible coverage that will appeal to students and instructors alike.

Preface	p. xi
Chapter 1 Why the Criminal Justice Researcher Uses Statistics	p. 1
The Nature of Criminal Justice Research	p. 1
The Experiment	p. 2
The Quasi-Experiment	p. 3
The Survey	p. 5
Meta-Analysis	p. 6
Other Methods	p. 6
Major Data Sources in Criminology and Criminal Justice	p. 7
Surveys	p. 7
Police Reports	p. 8
Why Test Hypotheses?	p. 8
The Stages of Criminal Justice Research	p. 9
Using Series of Numbers to Do Criminal Justice Research	p. 9
The Nominal Level	p. 10
The Ordinal Level	p. 11
The Interval (and Ratio) Level	p. 11
Treating Ordinal Data as Interval	p. 13
Further Measurement Issues	p. 14
Functions of Statistics	p. 14
Description	p. 15
Decision Making	p. 17
An Important Note about Rounding	p. 19
Summary	p. 20
Questions and Problems	p. 20
Computer Exercises	p. 22
Looking at the Larger Picture: A Student Survey	p. 22
Part 1 Description	p. 24
Chapter 2 Organizing the Data	p. 24
Frequency Distributions of Nominal Data	p. 24
Comparing Distributions	p. 25
Proportions and Percentages	p. 25
Rates	p. 26
Simple Frequency Distributions of Ordinal and Interval Data	p. 28
Grouped Frequency Distributions of Interval Data	p. 29
The Midpoint	p. 30
Guidelines for Constructing Class Intervals	p. 30
Cumulative Distributions	p. 31
Dealing with Decimal Data	p. 32
Flexible Class Intervals	p. 34
Cross-Tabulations	p. 35
Graphic Presentations	p. 40
Pie Charts	p. 40
Bar Graphs and Histograms	p. 41
Frequency Polygons	p. 43
The Shape of a Frequency Distribution	p. 43
Line Chart	p. 45
Maps	p. 46
Summary	p. 47
Questions and Problems	p. 47
Computer Exercises	p. 50
Chapter 3 Measures of Central Tendency	p. 51
The Mode	p. 51
The Median	p. 52
The Mean	p. 53
Taking One Step at a Time	p. 54
Obtaining the Mode, Median, and Mean from a Simple Frequency Distribution	p. 55
Comparing the Mode, Median, and Mean	p. 58
Level of Measurement	p. 58
Shape of the Distribution	p. 58
Research Objective	p. 60
Summary	p. 61
Questions and Problems	p. 61
Computer Exercises	p. 63
Chapter 4 Measures of Variability	p. 64
The Range	p. 65
The Variance and the Standard Deviation	p. 65
The Raw-Score Formula for Variance and Standard Deviation	p. 68
Obtaining the Variance and Standard Deviation from a Simple Frequency Distribution	p. 69
Coefficient of Variation	p. 72
The Meaning of the Standard Deviation	p. 73
Comparing Measures of Variability	p. 75
Summary	p. 76
Questions and Problems	p. 76
Computer Exercises	p. 77
Looking at the Larger Picture: Describing Data	p. 78
Part 2 From Description to Decision Making	p. 81
Chapter 5 Probability and the Normal Curve	p. 81
Rules of Probability	p. 82
Probability Distributions	p. 83
The Difference between Probability Distributions and Frequency Distributions	p. 86
Mean and Standard Deviation of a Probability Distribution	p. 87
The Normal Curve as a Probability Distribution	p. 88
Characteristics of the Normal Curve	p. 88
The Model and the Reality of the Normal Curve	p. 89
The Area under the Normal Curve	p. 90
Clarifying the Standard Deviation	p. 92
Using Table A	p. 94
Standard Scores and the Normal Curve	p. 95
Finding Probability under the Normal Curve	p. 97
Finding Scores from Probability Based on the Normal Curve	p. 100
Summary	p. 101
Questions and Problems	p. 102
Computer Exercises	p. 103
Chapter 6 Samples and Populations	p. 104
Errors in the Conduct of Research	p. 104
Sampling Methods	p. 106
Sampling Error	p. 107
Sampling Distribution of Means	p. 108
Characteristics of a Sampling Distribution of Means	p. 111
The Sampling Distribution of Means as a Normal Curve	p. 112
Standard Error of the Mean	p. 114
Confidence Intervals	p. 116
The t Distribution	p. 119
Estimating Proportions	p. 127
Summary	p. 129
Questions and Problems	p. 129
Computer Exercises	p. 131
Looking at the Larger Picture: Generalizing from Samples to Populations	p. 131
Part 3 Decision Making	p. 133
Chapter 7 Testing Differences Between Means	p. 133
Testing the Difference between Sample and Population Means	p. 134
Testing the Difference between Two Sample Means	p. 135
The Null Hypothesis: No Difference between Means	p. 136
The Research Hypothesis: A Difference between Means	p. 137
Sampling Distribution of Differences between Means	p. 137
Testing Hypotheses with the Distribution of Differences between Means	p. 140
Levels of Significance	p. 143
Choosing a Level of Significance	p. 145
What Is the Difference between P and ¿?	p. 146
Standard Error of the Difference between Means	p. 147
Testing the Difference between Means	p. 148
Comparing Dependent Samples	p. 151
Two Sample Test of Proportions	p. 155
One-Tailed Tests	p. 157
Requirements for Testing the Difference between Means	p. 164
Summary	p. 165
Questions and Problems	p. 166
Computer Exercises	p. 168
Chapter 8 Analysis of Variance	p. 169
The Logic of Analysis of Variance	p. 170
The Sum of Squares	p. 171
A Research illustration	p. 172
Computing Sums of Squares	p. 174
Mean Square	p. 176
The F Ratio	p. 177
A Multiple Comparison of Means	p. 182
Requirements for Using the F Ratio	p. 183
Summary	p. 184
Questions and Problems	p. 184
Computer Exercises	p. 185
Chapter 9 Nonparametric Tests of Significance	p. 186
One-Way Chi-Square Test	p. 187
Two-Way Chi-Square Test	p. 192
Finding the Expected Frequencies	p. 195
Comparing Several Groups	p. 198
Correcting for Small Expected Frequencies	p. 200
Requirements for the Use of Two-Way Chi-Square	p. 203
The Median Test	p. 203
Requirements for the Use of the Median Test	p. 205
Mann-Whitney U Test	p. 205
Requirements for the Use of the Mann-Whitney U Test	p. 208
Kruskal-Wallis Test	p. 208
Requirements for the Use of the Kruskal-Wallis Test	p. 210
Summary	p. 210
Questions and Problems	p. 210
Computer Exercises	p. 213
Looking at the Larger Picture: Testing for Differences	p. 214
Part 4 From Decision Making to Association	p. 216
Chapter 10 Correlation	p. 216
Strength of Correlation	p. 216
Direction of Correlation	p. 217
Curvilinear Correlation	p. 218
The Correlation Coefficient	p. 219
Pearson's Correlation Coefficient	p. 219
A Computational Formula for Pearson's r	p. 222
Testing the Significance of Pearson's r	p. 223
A Simplified Method for Testing the Significance of r	p. 224
Requirements for the Use of Pearson's Correlation Coefficient	p. 226
The Importance of Scatter Plots	p. 227
Partial Correlation	p. 229
Summary	p. 233
Questions and Problems	p. 233
Computer Exercises	p. 235
Chapter 11 Regression Analysis	p. 237
The Regression Model	p. 238
Requirements for Regression	p. 242
Interpreting the Regression Line	p. 242
Prediction Errors	p. 243
The Least Squares Criterion	p. 246
Regression and Pearson's Correlation	p. 247
Regression and Analysis of Variance	p. 248
Multiple Regression*	p. 252
Dummy Variables	p. 255
Interaction Terms	p. 257
Multicollinearity	p. 258
Logistic Regression	p. 259
Summary	p. 264
Questions and Problems	p. 264
Computer Exercises	p. 266
Chapter 12 Nonparametric Measures of Correlation	p. 268
Spearman's Rank-Order Correlation Coefficient	p. 268
Dealing with Tied Ranks	p. 270
Testing the Significance of the Rank-Order Correlation Coefficient	p. 271
Requirements for Using the Rank-Order Correlation Coefficient	p. 275
Goodman's and Kruskal's Gamma	p. 275
Testing the Significance of Gamma	p. 277
Requirements for Using Gamma	p. 278
Correlation Coefficient for Nominal Data Arranged in a 2 × 2 Table	p. 278
Testing the Significance of Phi	p. 279
Requirements for Using the Phi Coefficient	p. 280
Correlation Coefficients for Nominal Data in Larger than 2 × 2 Tables	p. 280
Testing the Significance of the Contingency Coefficient	p. 281
Requirements for Using the Contingency Coefficient	p. 281
An Alternative to the Contingency Coefficient	p. 281
Summary	p. 284
Questions and Problems	p. 284
Computer Exercises	p. 286
Looking at the Larger Picture: Measuring Association	p. 287
Part 5 Applying Statistics	p. 288
Chapter 13 Applying Statistical Procedures to Research Problems	p. 288
Research Situations	p. 292
Research Solutions	p. 305
Appendix A Using SPSS and the General Social Survey	p. 312
Appendix B StatCrunch™ Data Analysis on the Web	p. 331
Appendix C Tables	p. 337
Appendix D A Review of Some Fundamentals of Mathematics	p. 351
Appendix E List of Formulas	p. 355
Glossary	p. 360
Solutions to Problems	p. 364
Index	p. 368

Available:*

On Order

Summary

Summary

Table of Contents