Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine how the term “overkill” is used in the homicide literature to identify definitional issues that may interfere with reliable data coding across studies. This preliminary examination of the concept can guide future studies seeking to develop a standard definition. Design/methodology/approach To identify issues inherent in the term “overkill,” three definitions – ranging from broad and unclear to more specific and objective – were extracted or adapted from the existing literature. Using closed, homicide case files, nine coders were tasked with coding for the presence of overkill according to one of the definitions across two rounds of coding. Definitional components that made the coding of overkill difficult were identified using a qualitative sorting task to separate items into themes that represented similar issues; basic inter-rater agreement patterns were examined using pairwise percent agreement. Findings Based on coder feedback, two problems were identified: conceptual issues with the definitions and logistical issues with coding. However, feedback also suggested that increasing the objectivity of the overkill definition led coders to feel the intended meaning of the term was lost. Two out of three groups showed an increase in coder agreement between the two phases of data collection, illustrating how increased training is useful in certain situations. Originality/value This study is the first in-depth methodological and empirical examination of how the term “overkill” has been operationalized in the literature, raises key questions that may help with more clearly coding this variable, and outlines issues that may add difficulty to the development of a standard definition.

中文翻译：

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过度杀伤，我们一看到就知道：研究凶杀研究中过度伤害的定义

目的本文的目的是研究凶杀文学中如何使用“过度杀伤”一词来确定可能干扰整个研究中可靠数据编码的定义性问题。对该概念的初步检查可以指导将来寻求开发标准定义的研究。设计/方法/方法为了识别“过大杀伤力”一词固有的问题，从现有文献中提取或改编了三个定义-从广义和不清楚到更具体和客观。使用封闭的凶杀案档案，根据两轮编码中的定义之一，让九名编码员负责编码是否存在过大杀伤力。使用定性排序任务将将项目分解为代表类似问题的主题，从而确定使过度杀伤性代码难以编码的定义性组件；使用成对百分比协议检查了基本的评分者间协议模式。根据调查结果，发现了两个问题：定义的概念性问题和编码的后勤问题。但是，反馈还表明，提高过度杀伤性定义的客观性会使编码人员感到该术语的预期含义已丢失。三分之二的小组中，数据收集的两个阶段之间的编码器一致性有所提高，这说明在某些情况下增加训练的用处。