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Quantitative & Qualitative Methods Sample Essay & Outline

The article by Olver & Camilleri et al. states that although the survey results often indicate an increased interest amongst the Canadian psychology graduate students in them pursuing criminal justice psychology, the retention and recruitment of persons as the Correctional service of Canada has become of great concern (Mark Olver, 2011). The study showed that the existed several sites in the Canadian service of Canada that provided different and diverse opportunities for the different clinical psychology training opportunities. The barrier that was most evident to the provision of training according to the article is lack of time for the prospective trainers as well as the sites reporting relatively few of their trainees being retained in the different positions available for psychologists. There is a need for clinical training in the justice system.

Statistics shows that since the year 1997, there has been an increase of around 71% with offenders who are diagnosed as having mental health conditions. Further, the numbers of offenders that are on a prescribed medication have also increased. It has come to the attention of many health care professionals that indeed the health resources that exist in the federal correctional facilities are not sufficient, and therefore, there is a need for the service to ensure that they enhance the recruitment of mental health professionals. This research method was quantitative and used the survey method to collect primary information from the ground.

Johnson, Holsinger & Lowenkamp argue in their article that offender assessment is the cornerstone of effective community supervision. The authors present the progression of and test the predictive validity that exists in the 4th-generation risk assessment instruments that are often designed for U.S probation. The authors use large administrative data in order to try to create an assessment of these instruments as well as conduct a prospective and efficient validation (Christopher LowenKamp, 2013). The data that is gotten from the case vignettes scored by several trained officers are consequently used in order to test whether there exists an interrater agreement with the assessment instrument that is being used. In summary, the analysis of the assessment instrument showed that there existed a predicted re-arrest reliably when the assessment results were based entirely on the administrative data as well as the officer-completed assessments.

Further, the analysis also showed high rates of interrater agreement. However, although the study was comprehensive in terms of its scope and data usage, there existed several limitations. Firstly, the data that used in the research was archival and, therefore, there is a need to ensure that there is recent data that is collected. Further, in the future analysis there is a need to ensure that there exists a dynamic approach in order to lead to the development of instruments that can be said to be extremely sensitive to change. This, therefore, assesses the offender change more pronounced and, therefore, the progress can be said to be more feasible.

Johnson, Holsinger & Lowenkamp in their article use multiple data sources in a bid to construct as well as validate the PCRA. The data sources included federal reports criminal history report and several other important reports. This was a qualitative method of data collection, as it did not involve any quantification. On the other hand, the research by Olver & Camilleri et al. involved a survey of several training opportunities and, therefore, it can be categorized as being quantitative. These are the two major differences that exist between these two articles; one is quantitative, and the other is qualitative. The research by Johnson, Holsinger & Lowenkamp used Multivariate analysis in order to analyze the data that they had, this was important as it led to them to several important conclusions. The Olver & Camilleri et al. research used standard statistical analyses such as mean, standard deviation, variance, and regression analysis in order to interpret the data that they had taken from the field.

In conclusion, there are two major methods of research; either quantitative or qualitative. There is no better method as the two often serve their unique services and it often depends on what the researcher wants to achieve. However, quantitative research is often encouraged because it involves working with recent data that has no bias and therefore, one is more likely to have a logical and reliable conclusion as compared to qualitative methods. The major limitation that comes with qualitative methods is that the data that is being used is often archival. This means that it might be outdated and might not go hand in hand with the current trends in the market and consequently, one might arrive at the wrong conclusion. However, the two have different and special circumstance where they might be used, for example, qualitative analysis is often cost friendly as compared to the quantitative method and consequently, a research group that is working on a tight budget might decide to go for the qualitative method as opposed to the quantitative one primarily because of the tight budget.

References

Christopher LowenKamp, J. J. (2013). The Federal Post Conviction Risk Assessment (PCRA): A construction and validity study . Psychological services , 87-96.
Mark Olver, J. C. (2011). A Survey of Clinical Psychology Training in Canadian Federal Corrections: Implications for Psychologist Recruitment and Retention. Canadian Psychology , 310-320.

Action Research Methods Sample Essay & Outline

Kurt Lewin was concerned with social change and he argued that more particularly there was a need for permanent social change in the society. He believed that the motivation to change was strongly related to action and that if people were active in their decisions they affected them, and they are often more likely to adopt new ways. He argued that rational social management often proceeds in different spiral of steps and each of the steps were composed of planning, fact fining and later action. There are three critical steps that are involved in action research as depicted by Lewin. The first step is planning action and the principal elements of this stage of include preliminary diagnosis, feedback of results, joint planning and data gathering (Townsend, 2013). The second critical step is the transformation phase which often involves the actions that relate to the learning process and they are held in for planning as well as the execution of the behavioral changes that occur in the client organization. The third critical stage is the outputs or as commonly referred to as the results phase. This critical stage often involves the actual changes that occur in behavior that result from the corrective actions steps that are taken in the second stage.

Chris Argyris' action research model studies how human beings often design their actions in difficult actions. Human design their actions in order to achieve their different intended consequences are often governed by their different set of diverse environmental variables. The other action research method is by John Heron and Peter Reason's often known as the co-operative inquiry (Townsend, 2013). The co-operative inquiry often deals with research with the people rather than researching on the people. This action research method often emphasizes on all the different active participants being fully involved in research decisions as co-researchers (Yaeger, 2006).

In the Argyris' action research model there are three main critical elements. The first is the fact that people have mental maps in regards as to how they can act in different situations. This often involves the way they plan, implement as well as review their actions. Before an action is taken there are several dimensions that often take place. The first is the governing variable and these are the dimensions that people often take in order to keep up with the different acceptable limits. Any action is often likely to impact upon the different variables, and this situation can trigger the different trade-off that exists among the diverse governing variables (Yaeger, 2006). The second critical element is the action strategies and these involve the plans that are used by persons in order to keep up with their governing values into an acceptable range. Finally, the last critical element is the consequences, and these are what happen as a result of the action. It is of the essence to understand that the consequences can either be intended or unintended. If the consequences of the strategy that are used are what the person wanted, then it can be argued that the theory in use has been confirmed (Cheung-Judge, 2011).

Co-operative inquiry by John Heron and Peter Reason's co-operative inquiry contains several critical elements and they are four different types of knowledge (Townsend, 2013). The first is the propositional knowing; the second one is the practical knowing that includes the knowledge that often comes with actually doing what one proposes, the third critical element is experiential knowing where the feedback the researchers often get give them an interaction in the larger world. The last critical element is the presentation knowing, the artistic rehearsal process through several different new practices. The co-operative inquiry research process often includes these four critical steps at each cycle and this deepens the experience and knowledge of the initial proposition at each every cycle.

The two action research methods are important in the organization development as they help in progressive problem solving. The action research methods lead individuals that work with other teams as a part of community practice to improve the way they address issues and the way they solve problems (Cheung-Judge, 2011). The action research methods help the organization development as they help aim of improving their different strategies and practices of the organization (Argyris, 1985). The action research methods do the ground work and they can help in meeting the organizational changes by detecting what is ailing the organization through action research. Secondly, the action research can help increase organization development in that it involves the change of people, the development of process as well as develop the organization in an overall manner.

The action research methods including the Lenin Method are important in changing an organization as they can actively participate in changing the situation (Argyris, 1985). The action research can help improve the strategies, knowledge and practices of the different work environments within which they can be able to practice. Therefore, these action research methods are important as they help in ensuring that the organization is put in the right manner and they help in addressing the different issues and solving different problems.

References

Townsend, A. (2013). Action research: The challenges of understanding and changing practice. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
Yaeger, T. F., Head, T. C., & Sorensen, P. F. (2006). Global organization development: Managing unprecedented change. Greenwich: Information Age Publishing.
Argyris, C., Putnam, R. D., & Smith, D. M. L. (1985). Action science: Concepts, methods, and skills for research and intervention. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Argyris, C. (1993). Knowledge for action: A guide to overcoming barriers to organizational change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Cheung-Judge, M.-Y., & Holbeche, L. (2011). Organization development: A practitioner's guide for OD and HR. London: Kogan Page.
McLean, G. N. (2006). Organization development: Principles, processes, performance. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.