IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jcjust/v38yi6p1186-1190.html

Research Note: Assessing the validity of college samples: Are students really that different?

Author

Listed:
  • Wiecko, Filip M.

Abstract

Objective The purpose of this research note is to explore the validity of college student samples for criminology and criminal justice research. Some scholars have suggested that college populations are comprised of individuals who are different from the rest of society and that the use of college students for social research may distort our theoretical understanding of crime and criminality.Method The National Youth Survey is used to assess, college students' self-reported behaviors, frequency of behaviors, and attitudes in relation to the general population.Results The results indicate that there is almost no statistically significant difference in behaviors and only minor differences in the frequency of behaviors and attitudes.Conclusion The findings from this investigation suggest that while college students may be culturally unique, this uniqueness does not seem to affect validity.

Suggested Citation

  • Wiecko, Filip M., 2010. "Research Note: Assessing the validity of college samples: Are students really that different?," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 1186-1190, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jcjust:v:38:y::i:6:p:1186-1190
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047-2352(10)00187-X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joseph Henrich & Steve J. Heine & Ara Norenzayan, 2010. "The Weirdest People in the World?," RatSWD Working Papers 139, German Data Forum (RatSWD).
    2. Bohm, Robert M. & Vogel, Brenda L., 2004. "More than ten years after: The long-term stability of informed death penalty opinions," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 307-327.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. McCuddy, Timothy & Vogel, Matt, 2015. "Beyond Traditional Interaction: Exploring the functional form of the exposure-offending association across online network size," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 89-98.
    2. Bouffard, Jeffrey A. & Exum, M. Lyn, 2013. "Rational choice beyond the classroom: Decision making in offenders versus college students," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 41(6), pages 438-447.
    3. Flexon, Jamie L. & Meldrum, Ryan C. & Young, Jacob T.N. & Lehmann, Peter S., 2016. "Low self-control and the Dark Triad: Disentangling the predictive power of personality traits on young adult substance use, offending and victimization," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 159-169.
    4. Boman, John H. & Mowen, Thomas J., 2018. "Same feathers, different flocks: Breaking down the meaning of ‘behavioral Homophily’ in the etiology of crime," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 30-40.
    5. Brady, Patrick Q. & Nobles, Matt R. & Bouffard, Leana A., 2017. "Are college students really at a higher risk for stalking?: Exploring the generalizability of student samples in victimization research," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 12-21.
    6. McNeeley, Susan & Meldrum, Ryan Charles & Hoskin, Anthony W., 2018. "Low self-control and the adoption of street code values among young adults," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 118-126.
    7. Gau, Jacinta M., 2011. "The Convergent and Discriminant Validity of Procedural Justice and Police Legitimacy: An Empirical Test of Core Theoretical Propositions," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 39(6), pages 489-498.
    8. Jones, Shayne & Dinkins, Barbara & Sleep, Chelsea E. & Lynam, Donald R. & Miller, Joshua D., 2021. "The Add Health psychopathy scale: Assessing its construct validity," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sophie Clot & Charlotte Y. Stanton & Marc Willinger, 2017. "Are impatient farmers more risk-averse? Evidence from a lab-in-the-field experiment in rural Uganda," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(2), pages 156-169, January.
    2. Graf, Caroline & Suanet, Bianca & Wiepking, Pamala & Merz, Eva-Maria, 2023. "Social norms offer explanation for inconsistent effects of incentives on prosocial behavior," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 211(C), pages 429-441.
    3. repec:osf:osfxxx:fqmdu_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Sibilla Di Guida & Ido Erev & Davide Marchiori, 2014. "Cross Cultural Differences in Decisions from Experience: Evidence from Denmark, Israel and Taiwain," Working Papers ECARES ECARES 2014-16, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    5. Hind Dib‐slamani & Gilles Grolleau & Naoufel Mzoughi, 2021. "Is theft considered less severe when the victim is a foreign company?," Post-Print hal-03340844, HAL.
    6. Stefan Buijsman & Sarah E. Carter & Juan Pablo Berm'udez, 2025. "Autonomy by Design: Preserving Human Autonomy in AI Decision-Support," Papers 2506.23952, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2025.
    7. Munson, Michelle R. & Lee, Bethany R. & Miller, David & Cole, Andrea & Nedelcu, Cristina, 2013. "Emerging adulthood among former system youth: The ideal versus the real," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 35(6), pages 923-929.
    8. Shi, Yun & Cui, Xiangyu & Zhou, Xunyu, 2020. "Beta and Coskewness Pricing: Perspective from Probability Weighting," SocArXiv 5rqhv, Center for Open Science.
    9. Brady, David, 2023. "Poverty, not the poor," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 9(34), pages 1-17.
    10. Kyriaki Remoundou & Drichoutis Andreas & Phoebe Koundouri, 2010. "Warm glow in charitable auctions: Are the WEIRDos driving the results?," DEOS Working Papers 1028, Athens University of Economics and Business.
    11. Stephen L. Cheung & Agnieszka Tymula & Xueting Wang, 2022. "Present bias for monetary and dietary rewards," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 25(4), pages 1202-1233, September.
    12. Izabela Lebuda & Dorota M. Jankowska & Maciej Karwowski, 2020. "Parents’ Creative Self-Concept and Creative Activity as Predictors of Family Lifestyle," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(24), pages 1-18, December.
    13. Winter, Scott R. & Rice, Stephen & Rains, Taylor & Milner, Mattie & Mehta, Rian, 2017. "A longitudinal study on the alteration of consumer perceptions and the use of pilot medication," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 100-106.
    14. repec:plo:pone00:0236987 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Plante, Charles & Lassoued, Rim & Phillips, Peter W.B., 2017. "The Social Determinants of Cognitive Bias: The Effects of Low Capability on Decision Making in a Framing Experiment," SocArXiv u62cx, Center for Open Science.
    16. Sujoy Chakravarty, 2022. "How WEIRD Are We? How the Adoption of Certain Social Norms Altered Both Our Biology and Social Behaviour and, Ultimately, the Wealth of Nations," Vikalpa: The Journal for Decision Makers, , vol. 47(4), pages 317-321, December.
    17. John A. List, 2024. "Optimally generate policy-based evidence before scaling," Nature, Nature, vol. 626(7999), pages 491-499, February.
    18. Dai, Zhixin & Zheng, Jiwei & Zizzo, Daniel John, 2024. "Theories of reasoning and focal point play with a matched non-student sample," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    19. Nicolas Jacquemet & Adam Zylbersztejn, 2014. "What drives failure to maximize payoffs in the lab? A test of the inequality aversion hypothesis," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 18(4), pages 243-264, December.
    20. repec:osf:socarx:n49hv_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. João Gama Marques & Daniela Chesi & Raquel Oliveira Coelho & Inês Castanheira Costa & Celso Santos Antão & Carlos Alberto Pedro & Paulo Silva Santos & José Xavier Diogo, 2024. "Homeless Outreach Psychiatric Engagement for Lisboa (HOPE 4 Lisboa): One year of marontology, and one John Doe living with Diogenes syndrome," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 70(1), pages 227-230, February.
    22. Lohse, Johannes & Rahal, Rima-Maria & Schulte-Mecklenbeck, Michael & Sofianos, Andis & Wollbrant, Conny, 2024. "Investigations of decision processes at the intersection of psychology and economics," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    23. Jenny C Su & Chi-Yue Chiu & Wei-Fang Lin & Shigehiro Oishi, 2016. "Social Monitoring Matters for Deterring Social Deviance in Stable but Not Mobile Socio-Ecological Contexts," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(11), pages 1-13, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jcjust:v:38:y::i:6:p:1186-1190. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jcrimjus .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.