NCJ Number
140114
Journal
Justice Quarterly Volume: 9 Issue: 2 Dated: (June 1992) Pages: 299-324
Date Published
1992
Length
26 pages
Annotation
To examine the awareness and use of social science research among executive and administrative staff members of State correctional agencies, this study conducted a mail survey in the winter of 1989-90 of a quota sample of administrative-level central office employees with 10 selected job titles at the department of corrections or the equivalent agency in each of the 50 States.
Abstract
Officials and staff members of public agencies must become aware of social science research information if they are to make use of it in their work. Contemporary research has largely ignored the issue of awareness, however, as it has concentrated instead on later stages of the research-use process. In this survey of executive officials and administrative staff members of State correctional agencies, respondents consider awareness of social science research to be important, but most believe that they make less use of it than they should. Persons working in both research and nonresearch areas perceive the utility of social science research as relatively low and turn to nonscholarly sources of information before using scholarly sources. Researchers, however, tend to view social sciences as basic knowledge; whereas, many nonresearchers view social science as one of several types of knowledge that may be applied to clearly defined problems. The study concludes that research results must be disseminated more widely to the sources of information that correctional agency personnel encounter routinely, despite traditional academic publishing norms. 38 references, 5 tables, and 2 figures