Research Proposal: Vulnerable Participants and Methodology in Juvenile Crime and BAME in the UK

Research Proposal

1. Does the study involve participants who are particularly vulnerable (e.g. young children, victims of crime, homeless, mental illness etc.) ? 

2. Does the study involve participants would find it difficult to give informed consent (e.g. young children, people with learning difficulties) ? 

3. Will the study require the co-operation of a gatekeeper for initial access to the groups or individuals to be recruited ? 

4. Will it be necessary for participants to take part in the study without their knowledge or consent at the time ? 

5. Will the study involve discussion of topics which the participants may find sensitive? (e.g. sexual activity, personal drug use, income etc.)

6. Are drugs, placebos or other substances (e.g. food substances, vitamins, Chinese medicine) to be administered to the study participants ? 

7. Will the study involve invasive, intrusive or potentially harmful procedures of any kind? (e.g. Acupuncture, fitness testing) Will blood or tissue samples be obtained from participants ?

8. Is pain or more than mild discomfort likely to result from the study ?

9. Could the study induce psychological distress or anxiety or cause harm or negative consequences beyond the risks encountered in normal life?

10. Will the study involve prolonged or repetitive testing ? 

11. Will financial inducements (other than reasonable expenses and compensation for time) be offered to participants? 

12. Will the study require any deception of participants ?

13. the study involve NHS patients, staff or premises?1

14. Does this research require the approval of an external body ?

Project Details

Developing an idea and constructing a proposal

For this module you have to think of a piece of research that you can undertake. It will be necessary for you to gather new quantitative or qualitative data and we normally expect the area of interest will be slightly more focussed than at undergraduate level.

Thinking of ‘what to do’ can be challenging. So giving some early thought to this can be helpful. With that in mind here’s some advice:

1. Think of a broad topic area around which you might build a research proposal. It needs to be relevant to criminal justice studies. It is easier to think of a topic if you consider your personal or professional interest/experience, hobbies etc.

2. If for example you are working with children and safeguarding an example of a broad area might be child abuse. Drill down into this broad area to identify a narrow area of interest. For example this might be child abuse via the internet.

Research Proposal

3. Maybe one of your hobbies is watching movies. You could explore a topic relevant to this. For example, at what age do parents let children watch violent 18 certificate films and what impact do they consider they might have (and why)

4. You should  develop a manageable project which is broad enough to enable you to actually make a contribution to the topic, but at the same time small enough for you to be able to complete within the timetable of the dissertation.

5. The approach you take to your research will be determined by the research question you want to answer. Examples of titles might be:

a. Is the internet a source of child abuse in North Wales? perceptions of service providers

b. Children’s TV viewing and perceived future risk: a survey of parental perceptions

6. There are two basic approaches which you can take. These are Quantitative and Qualitative.  Whereas option

(a) above, is best addressed through qualitative methods, option

(b) would be addressed using quantitative methods

7. A guiding principle when identifying respondent groups (service providers and parents in the above examples) is risk of potential harm.  That is, only respondent groups who are deemed as not ‘vulnerable’ may participate in your study. Hence, in option

(a) this might be representatives from the Police, Social services and other representatives from Community Safety Partnerships. In option

(b) it might be parents who are part of a group of adults with children, with whom you are already in contact, and might even be members of the student body with children. Your supervisor will determine the suitability or otherwise of the prosed participant group.

8. We live in uncertain times- but remember, at this point, you are writing a proposal. Covid-19 is still with us and may impact on what is possible when you come to do your research- but that is a future concern. At the time of writing, it is still possible to undertake surveys and conduct interviews online, on the phone and face to face (where social distancing can be preserved).

9. Another guiding principle when identifying respondent groups is ease of access. Be realistic in identifying a study with a participant group who are relatively easy to engage (through personal or professional links). We’d all like to do ground breaking research that might involve us interviewing all known serial killers in the UK. However, this just isn’t feasible in the timescales available. Remember  KISS (keep it simple stupid)

10. That being said, we do expect at MA level the research students undertake  will be slightly more focussed than at undergraduate level. At undergraduate level it is permissible to do broad quantitative or  qualitative research such as that exploring ‘student perceptions of the death penalty’ or ‘fear of crime’. At  postgraduate level, however, we do want students to be more focussed and that is usually associated with research which either i) engages with a more specific group of subjects; ii) engages with a topic of more significant contemporary relevance,  iii) involves adopting a more rigorous methodological approach. The module supervisor will guide you in this regard to ensure what you intend doing is neither too complicated nor too unambitious at the postgraduate level.

11. Sample sizes:  For a qualitative study which involves semi-structured interviews we would expect a sample of between 8-12 respondents.  Where focus groups are involved we might expect two focus groups with between 6 and 8 participants each. In the case of a quantitative study, we could expect a sample size of around 60-100.

12. Collecting Data: For option (a) – the qualitative project, we would expect to see face-to face- audio recorded interviews or audio recorded focus groups.  For option (b) – the quantitative study- this ordinarily will involve either a face-to face delivery or self-completed structured questionnaires (including both closed and open ended questions).  Use of an online instrument (such as google forms) is encouraged where appropriate.

13. Data analysis.  For the qualitative study we will expect qualitative data analysis. Most probably this will involve a thematic analysis.  In the case of the quantitative study, the use of descriptive and inferential statistics will be expected.

14. Finally it is important to remember that you will be expected to be both knowledgeable about, and able to justify, your choice of research method. You may wish to use a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods but, as you will read during the lecture notes you need to go way beyond thinking of research in terms of a simplistic quantitative /qualitative split.