Gun control attitudes and criminal justice student differences

¶ … Payne, B. & Riedel, R. (2002). Gun control attitudes criminal justice student: differences

Provide APA-style citation of research article.

Payne, B. & Riedel, R. (2002). "Gun control attitudes and the criminal justice student: do differences exist?" College Student Journal. 36 (2): 3-14

What is the research question/objective?

The objective is to determine if there are different attitudes between criminal justice students and others regarding gun control.

What is the main hypothesis?

The hypothesis is that there will be a difference in attitudes, because criminal justice students can sometimes be more conservative than instructors and other students.

What is/are the main dependent variable(s) (outcome measure(s)) and how is it/are they measured? The main dependent variables are student attitudes towards gun control. It was measured by filling out questionairres opining students whether or not they were in favor of or against gun control measures

5. What is/are the main independent variable(s) and how is it/are they measured?

The main independent variables are race, gender, location in which individuals grew up (urban or rural), as well as area of interest in student studies. These variables were measured by students filling out a questionnaire.

6. What variables were controlled for?

The variables that were controlled for include the areas of studies that students who were surveyed were pursuing.

7. What is the unit of analysis?

Of the 254 college students, there were 119 criminal justice majors and 135 students in interdisciplinary and general studies courses involved in the study; 137 men and 117 women. Approximately 65% of the students were from non-urban (rural) environments; nearly 78% of the students were Caucasian.

8. What is the population being studied?

The population studied is 254 students in a medium-sized southern university.

9. What were the findings/results?

The results indicate that students of criminal justice were more likely to be against gun control measures than non-criminal justice students were.

10. What was the conclusion?

The conclusion was that in addition to criminal justice students being more likely to oppose gun control laws, there were other factors that contributed to this position. These factors include being Caucasian, male, coming from a rural area, and having previous experience handling and discharging guns.

Research Question: do college student and faculty have different attitudes toward United States gun control violence and prevention. Hypothesis: there will be different attitudes between students and faculty regarding gun violence prevention legislation.