Many challenges face today’s world. The media has reported numerous cases of child sexual abuse that has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years. Many of these charges are made by adults claiming to have recovered repressed childhood memories of abuse (Loftus, 1992). Learning Team A has complied a research paper aimed to analyze the drastic effects of sexual abuse in the lives of sex offenders and determine whether sex offenders were abused as children. The subject of the study is sex offenders and the working hypothesis is “were sexual offenders the victims of sexual abuse as children”. Team A will use a mixed method study to prove or disprove the hypothesis gathering twice the information that using quantitative or qualitative studies alone provide. By interviewing and surveying sexual offenders, the research team will learn more about what happened during offenders’ childhood.
Elements of the Study
The purpose of this research is to discover, “Were sexual offenders themselves the victims of sexual abuse when they were children?”. Researchers must take care to protect the identity of study participants during and after the research period. Researchers may conduct surveys, interviews, and collect information from websites to gather information to answer the question: “Are sexual offenders the victims of sexual abuse?” By interviewing and surveying sexual offenders, the research team will learn more about what happened during the offender’s childhood. The quantitative portion of this research would help identify trends and patterns. One would expect, for example, to find that a large percentage of sexual offenders were indeed themselves victims of abuse as children. One would also expect the qualitative portion of this study to help understand the reasons the chances appear high that an abused child will later become an abuser as an adult. To maintain confidentiality, researchers should assign clients a participant number. They must also carefully consider the phrasing of questions to avoid causing the participant to feel as though any trauma suffered as a child was invited. Abused and neglected children are more likely to become criminal offenders as adults. A National Institute of Justice study found that “childhood abuse increased the odds of future delinquency and adult criminality overall by 40 percent” (Widom, 1992). Child sexual abuse victims are also at risk of becoming ensnared in this cycle of violence. One expert estimates that 40 percent of sexual abusers were sexually abused as children (Vanderbilt, 1992). In addition, victims of child sexual abuse are 27.7 times more likely to be arrested for prostitution as adults than non-victims (Widom, 1995). Some victims become sexual abusers or prostitutes because they have a difficult time relating to others except through sexual encounters.
Ethical Considerations
Researching sexual offenders poses many ethical considerations and is a highly sensitive subject for many people. Concealing the identities of participants is important so they feel comfortable with the study and must remain priority throughout the entire study. The hardest part in a study of sexual offenders is gaining the participant’s trust and assurance that all information will remain confidential before, during, and after the duration of the study (Rosnow & Rosenthal, 2008). Participants must understand the study and questions asked by researchers. Researchers must ensure that survey questions and study parameters do not make participants feel as though victims invited trauma incurred during childhood. Since many participants have experienced trauma as a child it is the researchers’ responsibility to make sure that guilt is never implied research staff or inferred by participants (Rosnow & Rosenthal, 2008). Obtaining a variety of participants from multiple locations is important so that any given area is not stigmatized as a “sexual offender colony”. Creating a study that is fair to everyone may be difficult but researchers should attempt to be as fair as possible to help reduce bias and provide research integrity for the participants. A study where participants are honest in answering questions increases the results’ accuracy and can help society in a positive ways. At the end of the study, the sexual offenders should be debriefed to help them deal with any misconceptions or questions the participants may have about the study’s process or content (Rosnow & Rosenthal, 2008).
Survey Design
Team A will employ a mixed method approach to gathering the information necessary for this study; surveys, questionnaires, and face-to-face interviews are necessary and are the primary sources of data collection. Attention needs to be given to the issue of the population surveyed and interviewed because the research team cannot possibly interview every recorded sexual offender. To narrow the focus and maintain a degree of randomness in the sampling Team A proposes sending initial surveys to mental health practitioners specializing in counseling sexual offenders; this technique is referred to as “probability sampling” (Rosnow & Rosenthal, 2008, p. 199). Team A will narrow the focus to individuals in therapy or counseling as a result of their sexual offenses; the advantage of this approach over simply collecting a list of sexual offenders currently in or out of prison and interviewing them is simple. Team A recognizes that sexual offenders are individuals with mental health issues. To circumvent tainting this study with potentially unreliable applicants, the study will start with the mental health practitioners. A greater probability exists that their input will be more accurate than that of a random sampling of sexual offenders, who may or may not be trustworthy in the information they provide. After retrieving the questionnaire, Team A will respond to respondents with an interview request (face-to-face, video conference, or phone). The preferred interview method is a private face-to-face interview between the practitioner and team representative. The clinician will be asked to present a case study they consider as a classic example of the sexual offender and to provide as much detail as possible without betraying the confidentiality of the client. If the clinician has a client who is willing to share his or her thoughts, Team A’s representative would also interview the client under the clinician’s supervision. No identifying characteristics such as names, ages, locations, etc. are included in the reports generated by these interviews. The clinician must review and approve of the final report prior to its release for study use. Interview results will be provided to other members of the research team to compile the results and present the conclusion to a review board. This details how the integration of a qualitative study and a quantitative study give a balanced approach to answering our foundational question. Mixed methodology is clearly demonstrated within the context of probability sampling. To maintain the validity and reliability of results, Team A would assign some members to researching scientific, peer-reviewed articles and studies on the study topic. This information would not necessarily be included in our report, but used as a tool to gauge study findings. If there were a large variance between our discoveries and those of respected peer-reviewed experts, Team A would re-examine data collection methods and instruments. Team A would minimize bias by dividing portions of this project into separate teams. One team would design the various questionnaires used in the study and another team would administer the initial questionnaires/surveys to practitioners targeted for the study. The target audience (i.e. adult sexual offenders) would be filtered through their practitioner to minimize the possibility of the offender falsifying information. Another team from Team A would conduct the face-to-face interviews with the clinicians or clients while another compiles survey/interview results and presents the initial report for review. Finally, the last team will compare the results of the study with research previously completed by other researchers to gauge whether Team A’s results concur with what others have discovered. By dividing the study parameters among separate teams, comparing the results to those of other known experts, and filtering any respondent interviews through the practitioners, Team A hopes to significantly minimize bias. Since the preferred survey design is face-to-face interview, Parallel-Forms Reliability (assesses the consistency of results between two tests conducted in the same way from the same content domain) could serve as a means of reliability and validity. All survey designs need to include a form of verifying the data collected before analyzing and assessing the content to assure accuracy of the data and its results. Learning Team A has outlined ways to examine the different drastic effects of sexual abuse. There are many misconceptions about sexual offenses, its victims, and the offenders in society today. This paper discusses ways this research team has analyzed the lives of sex offenders and outlines ways to research whether sex offenders were abused as children and re-enact their past childhood experiences. The goal of this study was to look for factors that help promote success as well as obstacles to describe a development and outline of the process that would be required for a research proposal.
References
Rosnow, R. L., & Rosenthal, R. (2008). Beginning behavioral research: A conceptual
primer (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.
Widom, Cathy Spatz. (1992). The Cycle of Violence. Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice.
Widom, Cathy Spatz. (1995). Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse – Later Criminal Consequences. Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice.