Week #10

This week we are dealing with the long and complicated process of recording and interpreting our quantitative data. This involves the use of the program SPSS which I find quite difficult to use even though I have some previous experience with it. Certainly it is useful in generating meaningful conclusions but the actual entering of data has been quite complex as we have six group members, each with different data that has to be entered separately. We could have perhaps made this simpler by entering all the data at once but has functioned well up to this point using the philosophy of division of labor. It seems that our collecting of data was quite efficient using this method; even though we have not received as many completed surveys from each major as we would have hoped we ended up with a vaguely proportional model of the Richmond undergraduate students. I hope this will help validate our results when we finally get to them! I am looking forward to qualitative data collection and analysis as I find this much more interesting and relevant.

Week #9

This week are getting down to the business of actually conducting our surveys and distributing them to our participants. To be honest I am finding this process quite stressful as I feel quite short on time and I am worried that I will not be able to fill the quota of surveys that I am supposed to ensure are completed for my group. I feel like we have worked very well as a group so far and the way we have divided up the work has made things easier and more efficient for everyone involved. We intend to do the same with the interviews, data entry, and transcription so I am hoping this process will go smoothly. I am also hoping that the issue of fulfilling the appropriate sample size will be sorted out eventually. I am worried that we may have to rearrange things after the data has been collected which I know will make things difficult. I am enjoying learning further uses for the SPSS programs as I have previously used it only for statistics classes. I have now realized that SPSS can be used for human benefit as well.

Week #7

This week we worked on revising our surveys, interviews, and the information sheets we are going to provide for our participants. The changes JFK L3GS made were mostly to do with language; clarifying what we are trying to get across to those who take our surveys or those we interview. We discovered it was best to provide options in lieu of open answered questions, especially in situations where we knew exactly what sort of answers we wanted. In some ways this will limit variation of answers but overall it will make our research easier to compile, comprehend, and draw a conclusion from. If we can't draw a solid conclusion then there is really no point to the project.
We also had to revise our information sheet. We previously approached this document as a way to draw potential participants into the project, spark their interest and make them feel at ease with the whole process. We tried to accomplish through humor and lighthearted language but were instructed that this might cause the opposite effect and make our possible participants not take the surveys or interviews seriously enough. In lieu of humor we turned to clear, simple, but not degrading language that will explain to those who have had no previous knowledge of our research project what exactly we are trying to accomplish. Hopefully this will motivate them to join us!

Week #6

Now I think is the time we should begin conducting our surveys and collecting information on those who are willing to participate in further interviews. I have been beginning to think about how we will divide up this task as I am beginning to realize how much work this will actually take. As we are aiming to collect data from twenty-five students from each major I think we should perhaps assign each person in the group two or three majors to focus on as this will make it easier for everyone. I also think we should be very sure to hand the surveys out to more people than we actually require so that we have backup in case some of the data proves to be invalid or we do not receive a response from the student.
I found the articles we read on "bad" research fascinating. I have always wondered where those shocking statistics in newspapers come from but was naive enough to trust that they were provided by legitimate sources. I now find myself second guessing things I read, taking everything with a pinch of salt and trying to infer from the article how the research was conducted. Social research is more complex than people imagine and it is all too easy to be lazy with it and produce misleading information which is conveyed to the public as truth.