TO: Students in CJ 160
FROM: R. B. Taylor
DATE: 4/13/00
RE: Assignment for paper 4
PURPOSE. The purpose of this assignment is for you
to think about the new Maryland gun control law that just passed this
week in the context of what you have been learning about gun control
initiatives, and the problems with evaluating the effectiveness of
these quasi-experiments.
FIRST: Read the two articles about the Maryland
law. These come from the Baltimore Sun. Be sure to print out
and read BOTH of them.
SECOND: Specify in your paper one particular
feature of the law just passed whose effectiveness you want to
examine. This change becomes your INDEPENDENT VARIABLE.
THIRD: Specify a DEPENDENT or outcome variable that
you will rely on to gauge the effectiveness of the law. BE SPECIFIC.
I need a variable, not a concept. Be sure also to tell me the time
frame within which you will be examining this outcome. Is your unit
of observation days weeks months what? How long are you going to
track it for? What is your unit of analysis? Are you going to be
tracking this at the street block, neighborhood, hospital, city,
county, state level or something else in between?
FOURTH. Identify the most plausible Threat to
Internal Validity (TIV) that will create problems for you being sure
the law change really affected the outcome, SUPPOSING that you find
the dependent variable affected in a way suggesting effectiveness of
the law. Be sure to use the correct terms for the TIV, and be sure
your discussion is WELL GROUNDED in RMCJ pages 268-282. Be sure you
tell me clearly WHY you think this is a threat to internal validity.
Be sure that you ALSO LINK YOUR DISCUSSION to at least one of the
readings we have done on gun policy changes: Roth or Lott or Webster.
GRADING
Identify I.V.: 25%
Identify D.V.: 25%
Discuss TIV: 40%
Correct references, incl. web references: 10%
PARAMETERS: Absolutely NO MORE than TWO pages DOUBLE SPACED. Usual
paper policies apply. DUE: 5/5/00