Abstract
Conducting research in the prisons has its ups and downs. Majority of time, researchers face stress, rigor and challenges. It is documented that data collected in the prison shows poor response and high attrition rate. This article intends to share practical experience from the research carried out titled: Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory -2- Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF) profile of prisoners in Southwestern Nigeria and to showhow attrition rate and research bias can be managed and how prisoners can be recruitedwithout the use of coercion. It was found that the factors that cause a high rate of wear andtear analyzed the questionnaire at length, the cause being the ambiguity of the questionsand the desire of the respondents to thank the researchers. Therefore, it is necessary forresearchers to use questionnaires with fewer items, the language of the questionnaire shouldbe easy to understand and researchers should be careful of being sentimental with theprisoners.
Highlights
Academic research is a careful and systematic investigation aimed at seeking truth and new knowledge for the purpose of development which can be carried out anywhere, the prisons inclusive
The basic components of an academic research in the prison are good approach, good logistics and intent to ensure good outcome but conducting research in the prison is of no easy task [1]
Five hundred and fifty-nine (599) were lost to VRIN and TRIN t-scores above 80 which brought down the total valid, interpretable and sound profiles to three hundred and twenty (320) which coincidentally is within the sample size needed as the total population of the prisoners in the Southwestern Nigeria was estimated 16,000 as at March 2017 when the data was collected
Summary
Academic research is a careful and systematic investigation aimed at seeking truth and new knowledge for the purpose of development which can be carried out anywhere, the prisons inclusive. Five hundred and fifty-nine (599) were lost to VRIN and TRIN t-scores above 80 which brought down the total valid, interpretable and sound profiles to three hundred and twenty (320) which coincidentally is within the sample size needed as the total population of the prisoners in the Southwestern Nigeria was estimated 16,000 as at March 2017 when the data was collected. There is substantial evidence that data from surveys and interviews are problematic, prisoners answering surveys persistently underreport socially undesirable attributes and over-report socially desirable attributes [8] This was the case of our research using the MMPI2-RF, a good number of prisoners presented themselves in a favorable light by withholding any petty faults and shortcomings that most individuals endorse and they over reported their symptoms with the aim of getting pity and considerations [3] (see Table 1). Not that the symptoms were not present but they were exaggerated
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