School resource officers' perceptions of duties in suburban middle schools

Education

Qualitative Method

Distinguishing research purposes

When trying to determine the purpose for doing research it is often helpful to look at the idea of distinguishing between those things in which you can study through gathering and evaluating data, the research purpose and those things that you would like to know more about but can't study via empirical data, the practical purpose.

Empirical data is data that is derived from experiment, experience, and observation rather than from theory or logic (Empirical, n.d.) When looking at the problem of resource officers' perceptions of their duties in suburban middle schools, one set of empirical data that can be studied would be that of poverty and family dysfunction and how that drives school violence. A question that can be looked at in regards to this data is what is it that school resource officers can do reduce the amount of violence surrounding this segment of kids. So in this study the research purpose would be to see how much poverty and family dysfunction contribute to school violence, and the practical purpose would be to see what it is that school resources officers can do to reduce this.

By preserving the distinction between the research purpose and practical purpose of a study it is possible to design a study that will elicit some kind of change in the area in which you are studying. It allows the research designer to formulate empirical questions that will help to shape the outcome of the practical purpose of the study.

SUBJECT: Generating an analytic memo

A good analytic memo should focus on a single term or idea within the research that is being done. The memo should explore the concepts characteristics while exploring the ways in which these characteristics might vary within different contexts.

In the study regarding resource officers' perceptions of their duties in suburban middle schools one concept that would be good to do an analytic memo on would be that of socioeconomic factors. What are socioeconomic factors and how do they affect people in general? How do these same factors affect children? Socioeconomic factors include things such as income, ethnicity, sense of community among other things (Socioeconomic Factors, 2004). Another factor that can be explored is that of how a person's characteristics are affected by the socioeconomic factors that they are exposed to. Personal characteristics are those inherent factors that are unique to each individual person. And because each person is made up differently each is going to respond to socioeconomic factors differently.

Developing an analytic memo is a good way for a researcher to work through some of the questions that they would like to have answered by their research. It helps to see the bigger picture that surrounds all of the little things that are being looked at.