A STUDY THAT EXAMINES THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FAMILY TROUBLES (OPERATIONALIZED USING YOUR DATA SET VARIABLES) AND TRUANCY OFFENDING IN JUVENILE GIRLS

1. A problem statement about Truancy, juvenile females, and home problems as causes

2. Literature Review that covers:

Labeling Theory, juvenile delinquency in females, and truancy or status offenses

Social Learning theory, juvenile delinquency in females, truancy, and family issues (problems)

Social Disorganization Theory (neighborhood effects on juvenile delinquency in females, truancy linked to family issues (problems).

3. Methods Chapter that covers

Research methods (quantitative) that you plan to use

A rationale about why your method is the best to answer the question/problem you have identified

You particular methods

How you will analyze this data (correlations, descriptive statistics, regression analysis, other)

4. Research Questions: A question or series of questions posed as hypotheses that will yield a finding or a finding of null hypothesis.

Example: Hypothesis 1: That family issues (narrowly defined) are statistically significantly related to truancy in juvenile girls.

Analysis

For each of your findings write the hypothesis statement and what you found, describing what your statistical analysis found.

Discussion: Take what you have found in your analysis and related it back to the theories you discussed in the start of your thesis. Discuss those findings that support your thesis and those findings that are unexpected but interesting (these could actually be the best findings of your thesis).

Policy Relevance: How could what you found in your study inform or help juvenile justice policy-makers and others develop programs to better address the problems of truancy among juvenile females as it related to family issues.

Conclusion: A restatement of the research problem, quick summary of your findings supporting your thesis and a statement about how future research could build upon your findings to explore the issues of truancy in juvenile females further.