A pedagogical aid for linking methodological and statistical courses

D.RA.MA: An Extended Conceptualization of Student Anxiety in Criminal Justice Research Methods Courses

“…In a review by Lanier (2002), the reader is reminded of the importance of statistical skills to criminal justice and criminology majors. Most government agencies, including the criminal justice arena, as well as private industry, routinely rely on data analysis.…”

“…Unlike the relevance argumentation and disinterest concepts, the reality of math anxiety has been well cited in the literature for many years (see Betz 1978;Pretorius and Norman 1992). The dread of statistics is so established that one text by Kranzler and Moursund (1999) is specifically entitled Statistics for the Terrified (Lanier 2002). In 1992, researchers at the University of Florida circulated a questionnaire to 9,093 students and found that over one quarter had a moderate to high need of help with math anxiety (Jones 2001).…”

Using Blogs as a Strategy to Enhance Students’ Participation and Learning in a Research Methods Course

“…Scholars in criminology and criminal justice have called for varied pedagogical approaches in teaching research methods to alleviate anxiety and help motivate students to embrace the subject matter (Brown, 1982;Gordon, Barnes, & Martin, 2009;Lanier, 2002). Brown (1982) argued that applied instructional methods "reduce anxiety and may also accelerate learning" (p. 13).…”

“…Brown (1982) argued that applied instructional methods "reduce anxiety and may also accelerate learning" (p. 13). Lanier (2002) also pointed to the importance of utilizing computers to prepare students for the workplace in contemporary society. He sees the internet as central in active learning, as he argued that the "applied and interdisciplinary nature of the discipline demands that instructors provide students the requisite analytical and computer skills" (Lanier, 2002, p. 155-6).…”