In February, the CJPOL held it first meeting, led by the lab's director, Dr. Leah Butler.
Graduate students in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice were in attendance and shared their interests related to public opinion and their ideas for future research projects to conduct in the lab (see photo on left).
Then, on March 25, Dr. Butler led the first workshop for the CJPOL: Conceptualization, Operationalization, and Assessment of Measurement Validity and Reliability. Students learned about the
processes of defining concepts, operationalizing those concepts as measurable observations, and evaluating the validity and reliability of those measures. In groups, students practiced assessing the pros and cons of different conceptual definitions of the same concepts, identifying the dimensions within a multi-item measures, and considering the multiple ways a multi-item scale can be constructed. Several students were present in person (see some pictured below) and others attended via Zoom.
With these two meetings, the lab is off to a great start! The next workshop will cover the process of conducting a literature review and developing a research question.
What topics do you think should be covered in future workshops?
If you do public opinion research, what do you wish you had known when you first got started?
Let us know in the comments!
