You are a researcher attached with to a large police agency. Your chief of police comes to you and says that she wants you to study why crime is decreasing in the city. When presenting the overview of your potential study you will need to discuss several fundamentals of the research study proposal. While providing your overview, the chief has several questions, including what are levels of measurement? And what are attitude scales? Discuss the four major levels of variable measurement, citing an example for each level so the chief might better understand these concepts. Discuss the three major types of attitude scales, identifying the unique features of each so that the chief might better understand them. (A 2-page response is required)

 

Introduction

The most common unsolved crime across the world is burglary. Various households in London city are affected mainly by the rates of burglary in the United Kingdom. However, offences of domestic burglary have been reported to fell by 8% in the year from December 2020 to August  2021. Therefore the rate of crime has drastically from last year. The city residents blamed the proximity to highways for the previous high crime rates in the city. They also accused the decrease in the number of police officers in the central streets (Boyle, 2017).  

Background to study

Londoners working and living in the city suffered about 170 commercial property and residential burglaries per square in the first seven months of 2020- the most significant municipality across the greater London. The higher density of responsible offices gave out liberal pickings for criminals (Bryman, 2012). These results displayed that the crime rate in the city was a big issue that needed to be considered. The elderly and the single-parent families mainly were affected by the burglaries. The most items stolen items were wallets, purses, electrical goods and money. The burglaries took place at night and were done by one male offender aged 17 to 38 years.

Moreover, the existing literature reveals that there is a lot that needs to be done first, be able to utilize the methods of research with the aid of the previous background studies, second, to turn these methods into more relevant data understood to the entire population, and finally to suggest solutions to change or even reduce further the crime rates and make the affected people get the awareness of the tips of lowering it further (Budd, 1999)

Research Questions

To achieve the objectives of the study, two questions targeted in scope will be addressed.

1) What methods and tools can be used to measure and analyze the public's thoughts and feelings about the decrease in the crime rate in London?

2) From the answer to the research question above, what can the research give and strengthen in terms of assuring the general public regarding the reduction in the reduction of crime rate in London?

Research methods

To understand the research questions posed, it is often necessary to combine different research methods of research. To get a deep and broad understanding of why the crime is reducing, putting together existing secondary data with the randomly dispersed geographical interviews and surveys turns to be more promising methods. For this research study proposal, combining written surveys and oral interviews methods will help get enough reasons why the crime rate is reducing. Interviews and surveys will be reviewed one by one while outlining their advantages and disadvantages.

Conclusion

The research study proposal will help in bringing down further in the city. By applying the clustering method, the crime hotspot of crime in the city can be traced, and the residents can be educated on more relevant ways of reducing the crime activities (Collinson, 2012).

Significant levels of variable measurement

There are four main levels of measurement, namely Nominal, Ordinal, Interval and Ratio.

In nominal measurement, numerical values uniquely name the attribute. No implication of ordering the cases. For instance, jersey numbers in volleyball are measures at the nominal level (Bashkansky & Gadrich, 2010)

In ordinal measurement, the attributes can be ranked orderly. For this case distance between the detail are meaningless. For instance, on a conducted study, educational attainment can be coded as o=less than high school; 1=high school: 2=degree of high school; 3=some college. In the case of ordinal measurement, the higher the number, the more the education attained.

In interval measurement, the appropriate distance in between the attributes does have meaning. For instance, when the temperature (in Fahrenheit) is measured, the length from 20-30 is equivalent to the distance from 50-60.

Lastly, in ratio measurement, absolute zero is meaningful. This shows that it is possible to construct a significant ratio with the variable of ratio. In the petitioned social research, most variables are ratio, for instance, the number of people or clients in the past seven months.  This is possible because the number of clients can be zero ( Valleman & Wilkinson, 2011).

Significant types of attitude scale

Thurstone scale

It's the attitude scale that measures the respondent's attitude by using a series of "disagree-agree" statements of several weights. These ideas help determine how a respondent feels and how strongly they tend to feel that way. Its unique characteristic is that it follows two steps. It cannot be administered at the early iteration without the judges’ rating.

Guttman scale

It measures how much of a negative or positive attitude a person has towards a specific subject or topic. Its unique feature is that it has statements in order of difficulty- from most difficult to less complicated.

Likert scale

It's a rating scale used for assessing attitudes, opinions, or behaviours. To collect information, one must present the participants with Likert-type statements or questions and a spectrum of possible responses, usually having 5 or 7 items. Its unique feature is that it offers extremely satisfied, delighted, extremely dissatisfied, and very dissatisfied (Cheung & Nguyen, 2007).

Research study proposal

Thesis statement: Why the crime is decreasing in the city

1. Introduction

2. Background study

3. Research Questions

4. Research methods

5. Conclusion

6. Major levels of various measurements

1. Norminal measurement
2. Ordinal measurement
3. Interval measurement
4. Ratio measurement

7. Major types of attitudes scale

1. Thurnestone
2. Guttman scale
3. Likert scale