The Conduct of the Police Officer - Case Study Example

Scenario: "Police officers’ attitudes towards punishment" Operationalization of the research question The research alludes to the attitudes of police officers towards punishments; this title is abstract and very wide. The research questions therefore seek to narrow down the research scope to a particular section of the society. This will include an effective understanding of the research scope a case in which the researcher identifies the research target and maps out n effective way of reaching them (Gerrish & Lacey, 2010). Every nation has police officers and they have their perceptions towards punishment, the research title thus far opens the scope to nearly the entire globe and the title therefore requires a revision to include the parameters of the study. This requirement authenticates the inclusion of England and Wales which compel the title to read as follows: Police officers’ attitudes towards punishment: A cases study of police officers ( all ranks) in England and Wales. In the above title, the research defines its own scope therefore enabling he researcher to device ways of reaching the target population by amassing the relevant resources in conducting the research. After the formulation of a definitive research title, it becomes prudent to operationalize the research title. This process begins by identifying the specific aspects of the police officers’ relation to criminals and how they view punish. The operationalization of the research is facilitated by the formation of effective and realistic research questions. In seeking answers to the research questions, the process rolls out thereby influencing the research. This is a quantitative research implying that it seeks to investigate the attitudes of the officers but in a measurable context. The research questions must therefore have an arithmetic formulation, one, which enables measuring of the specific research components thus enabling mathematical comparison of the components among the officers.in formulating the research questions therefore the researcher, investigates the nature of the relationship that exists between police officers and their culprits and how they treat them. This is both an ethical and a professional question. Police officers have a stringent code of conduct which defines how they relate to their culprits and how the dispense punishment the research therefore investigates the code and its implementation. Furthermore, the conduct of the police officer depends on the ethical principles, which are the ability of individual police officers to make an effective choice between right and wrong (Lavender, Edwards and Alfirevic, 2004). This research investigates police attitudes in types of punishments and their actual dispensation of punishment. It also investigates the modes of punishment preferred by police officers in the region. Among the research questions, the most prudent includes: Which is the most preferred form of punishment? In answering the questions, the researcher provides a number of measurable replies a mechanism, which dictates the effective clustering of all the possible types of punishments and their subsequent selection by every police officer. Additionally, when answering the question, the researcher asks other measurable follow questions, which not only elaborate the answer but also authenticates the research findings. Such a question as: What informs this choice of punishment? The answer to this follow up question is further limited to a number of choices whose selection by every police officer adds up to a statistical collection, which is thereafter collected and tabulated to provide a workable comparison with other research findings (Denzin & Lincoln, 2008). 2. The sampling techniques Sampling is the most important element in such a research, the scope of the study is too wide to encourage an effective research. Sampling therefore is the mechanism of selecting specific research participants. England and Wales are two independently existing states with different laws. Wales is smaller than England and the researcher therefore has to balance his selection process to derive a proportionate number of participants from every region (McNiff & Whitehead, 2006). Sampling is a verb derived from the noun sample, which refers to a part of anything taken or represented for inspection or shown as evidence of the quality of the whole. The sampling technique should therefore give an effective representation of the whole. This is achieved only through effective consideration of the whole; the researcher therefore considers all the demographic factors when selecting the research sample to give a representation of the entire police service booth in England and in the Wales. The researcher has a choice of sampling techniques to choose from the most relevant of which are the quota and the cluster sampling techniques. Cluster is a cost effective sampling technique and has a structure that is close to the quota sampling technique, it thus becomes more relevant to the research. I employing this, the researcher determine the number of participants to use in the research. The research covers a wide geographic area, furthermore it extends two authorities but Wales is smaller therefore contributes fewer respondents (Cluett and Bluff, 2006). The cluster sampling technique groups the respondents into groups and studies every group, the grouping is influenced by specific traits, which in this context may include the ranks of the police officers. The research investigates five thousand respondents; this is a concrete number that provides an actual representation of the police service that has averagely twenty five thousand officers, five hundred of whom comes from Wales. The efficacy of a sample arises from the effectiveness of the representation. The more the number of the representatives the more effective the research findings are. However, a large number of respondents make the research ineffective by complicating logistics; this either makes the research require a lot of financial resources or to extend for a longer duration. The longer the research duration the more ineffective its findings since the conduct of every research group changes from time to time. 3. Data collection methods After grouping the samples, the researcher therefore determined the most relevant data collection method to use for every sample. Among the readily available data collection methods are the use of questionnaires, interview and observations. Each of these research methodologies has its strengths and weaknesses. An effective researcher employs all the methodologies since they complement each other therefore resulting in an all-inclusive research finding. Questionnaires are more convenient is seeking a widely dispersed respondent. The researcher simply mails the questionnaire to the respondent who in turn completes the questionnaire at convenience and mails it back to the researcher. Interviews on the other allow the interviewer to ask follow up questions and observe thus collect other additional data (Chatterjee & Hevner, 2010). A combination of the two data collection methodologies is more effective in unearthing all the attitudes that police officers have for punishment. Five thousand respondents is quite a big research population. Furthermore, the respondents have an irregular placement all over the country with an extension to Wales. Another additional factor that determines the research duration is the available financial resources, with adequate money, the researcher easily hirers the assistance of other interviewers to collect the data from the respondents. This hastens the research process besides making more effective as the researcher collects the data at a stipulated time and in a uniform method. After identifying the respondents, the researcher simply designs an effective research questionnaire, an effective questionnaire is one which carries all the relevant questions for every police officer. Furthermore, with the understanding that the research is a quantitative one, the questionnaire should have a quantitative design. Such a design enables the researcher to collect the answers to the questions and compute a graphical representation of the findings. This becomes achievable only when the research questions in the questionnaires have a multiple answers, which the respondents simply choose, and the researcher therefore easily collects for computation. Besides the questionnaire format, the questions in the questionnaire should have a simple structure and have simple construction using the basic grammar to make it easier for the respondents to provide their responses. The use of jargons complicates the understanding f the respondents, which may therefore solicit wrong or irrelevant answers. The researcher should also employ experienced interviewers since the personality of the interviewer influences the type of answers that the respondent gives. Some respondents have a tendency to lie. The presentation of the interviewer should exhume confidence and ask questions professionally following an adequate introduction to the respondent. This makes the respondent know the purpose of the research findings thus in a way influences the level of truth in their responses. 4. Question format The formulation of the questionnaire requires an effective format that solicits relevant answers for all the questions in the research. The quantitative research methodology requires the multiple choice kind of questions. This makes it easier for the researcher to collect mathematically computable answers to the questions in the questionnaires and provides for a computation mechanism. Such results are easily presented both mathematically and graphically. In addition to the requirements of mathematical computation, the research investigates specific features in the respondents all of which influences the type of questions that the researcher includes in the questionnaires. There are different question formats that the researcher uses all of which have different strengths and weaknesses. Just as the data collection methods, these also used together to achieve the desired efficacy of the research since they all complement each other thus earning the research their joint benefit. A behavioral choice is one of the question categories. This type of questions provides choices to the respondent to choose from only that the choices, which may vary in number, are all behavioral. Inn answering these the respondent selects from the choices that the interviewer reads and it is advisable that while the respondent picks up an answer from the choices, the interviewer should observe the respondent to have an understanding of his body language as this communicates some of the features that their choices does not communicate. The rating scales type of questions investigates the intensity of behavior. This highly subjective type of question structure, allows the respondent to choose from numbers that represent different degrees of the action. Computing this type of data collected from the filed requires an effective coding of the research findings by such statistical tools as the SPSS software to convert the scales into computable features of the study. This type of questions is effective in describing the intensity of behavior. However, caution and care is prudent in ensuring accurate mathematical representation of the feelings since every progressive number represents a higher scale of particular occurrence. Semantic differential on the other hand refers to the use of different words in the provision of the multiple choices to the questions in the questionnaire. The words used should have slightly different meaning thus infer to different attributes associated with the human behavior and attitude in relation to the conduct of the police officers and their understanding of punishment. Attitude scale is another type of the questions used in the investigation of attitudes and behavior in a research of such a nature (Burns & Grove, 2009). These questions have multiple answers too only that the answers are different descriptions to the attitudes of the police officers. The above four types of question structures if used effectively creates an all-inclusive questionnaire that provides coverage of the different aspects of the police conduct in relation to the dispensation of punishment. Furthermore, such a questionnaire provides answers that are easily computed mathematically since the multiple choice method makes it easier for the researcher to collect and compare the research findings by apportioning the answers specific positions in the tabulation mechanisms that come thereafter in the data management. The SPSS software provides effective coding that enable effective management of the research data. This system of data management encodes the questions and the replies for every question uniquely thus providing the research with an easily computable research finding. The presentation of the research findings is also made easier and more presentation by the use of graphical presentations. Such elements as graphs and charts make the findings of a quantitative research more presentable and easy to understand (Gray, 2009). Furthermore, graphical presentation of the research makes it easy for the researcher to make comparison thus make conclusion of from the entire research findings. 5. Examples of question design Each of the above questions has different formats and has effectiveness in in answering different types of questions. However, they complement each other thereby authenticating the multiple uses of all the questions in the questionnaire. Examples of each category of the questions are as follows: a) Attitudinal/behavioral choices: Which is your most preferred mode of punishment? a) Community service b) Canning c) Imprisonment b) Likert-style formats: 2 examples Is imprisonment an effective mode of punishment? Denied -1 2 3 4 5-strongly agreed How often do you beat up your culprits? Less often- 1 2 3 4 5- Every often c) Semantic differential: 1 example with 3 items Do you attest to police brutality a) Yes b) No c) Maybe d) An attitude scale: an example consisting of four separate items measuring attitude. How do you rate the police in the following? Humanity: less human -1 2 3 4 5 –more human Brutality less brutal-1 2 3 4 5 – more brutal Punitive less punitive- 1 2 3 4 5-more punitive Efficiency less efficient- 1 2 3 4 5- more efficient References Burns, N. & Grove, S. K., 2009, Understanding Nursing Research: Building an Evidence Based Practice. 6th ed. Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders Company. Chatterjee, S., & Hevner, A., 2010, Design Research in Information Systems: Theory and Practice. Berlin: Springer US. Cluett, E, and Bluff, R (eds.), 2006, Principles and practice of Research in Midwifery. 2nd ed. Balliere Tindall: London. Denzin, N. K. & Lincoln, Y.S., 2008, Strategies of Qualitative Inquiry. 3rd ed. Sage Publications Inc. Gerrish, K. & Lacey, A. eds., 2010, The Research Process in Nursing. 6th ed.Oxford: Blackwell Science. Gray, D., 2009, Doing Research in the Real World. London: Sage. Lavender, T., Edwards, G. and Alfirevic, Z. (eds.), 2004, Demystifying Qualitative Research. Salisbury: Quay Books McNiff, J. & Whitehead, J.,2006, All you need to know about action research. London: Sage Read More