Abstract
The central issue in the design of crime and violence prevention research is internal (causal) validity. High internal validity provides great confidence that an empirical relationship between the variables of interest is in fact causal and not due to other variables. Randomized experimental designs provide the highest levels of causal validity. Yet, randomized experiments are relatively rare in crime and violence prevention research; instead, quasi-experimental designs, which have a number of potential threats to their causal validity, are typically utilized. In recent years, however, new quasi-experimental methods have emerged that offer high causal validity.
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Mitchell, O. (2017). Research Designs in Crime and Violence Prevention. In: Teasdale, B., Bradley, M. (eds) Preventing Crime and Violence. Advances in Prevention Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44124-5_16
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44124-5_16
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