Employer Expectations of Research Skills Provided in Criminology Undergraduate Education

Abstract

Studies show that undergraduate students in criminology-related degrees often receive sufficient information literacy training within the curriculum. Nevertheless, these degrees sometimes fail to equip graduates with the practical research methods skills required to produce and critically evaluate, quantitative and qualitative research. This is evidenced by the findings of research which show that some universities including those offering criminal justice and criminology degrees do not place enough emphasis on teaching students about research methods and the research process including sample recruitment, data collection, data analysis and research report writing. Furthermore, existing studies also show that it some universities do not teach students how to use data analysis programs required to conduct empirical research (such as SPSS for quantitative analysis and NVivo for qualitative analysis). We present findings from a small-scale study that examined research skills requirements from the perspectives of potential employers and postgraduate supervisors. We provide a description of the findings in relation to core components of the research process such as researching literature, designing research, and collecting and analysing data. We also then propose ways in which we might go about addressing these needs in future curriculum development.