COMM 250 Agenda - Week 6 Housekeeping Today: C1 (put in Folders) TP2 – See your folders Monday: RAT2 Lecture Surveys: Demographic, Scale items ITE3 – Multiple Parts Making Teams Work II

Types of Research 1.Experiments 2.Survey Analysis 3.Textual Analysis 4.Naturalistic Inquiry

Surveys “Survey” is a General Research Methods Questionnaires (opinion polls, market research, evaluation research) Field research (often qualitative) Interviews, Focus Groups (often qualitative) Questionnaires Self-administered – Hard-copy, Self-administered – Web-based Interview – in person Interview – telephone

Types of Questions Demographic Questions Age, Gender, Race, Income, Education, etc. Behavioral (Infrequently, Frequently) Do you own or have your own cell phone? How often do you use a cell phone and drive?, or: I use my cell phone while driving. Attitudinal (Disagree, Agree) Driving while using a cell phone should be banned. Driving while using a cell phone is dangerous.

In-Class Team Exercise # 6 - Part I First Do as Individuals, then produce a Team Version: Create 3 demographic questions for a survey: Gender, Age, and Education Rules - You should: Assume this is a “self-administered” questionnaire Choose the exact wording you would use Design “Multiple Choice” (not “Fill in the Blank”) Assign numbers to each value/level of each variable Deliverable : a written version of the above

Choosing Questions 2 Types of Questions Open-ended (Fill in the blanks) Closed (Multiple Choice: Y/N, a,b,c,d,e, 7 pt. scales) Multiple Choice Questions Mutually Exclusive Exhaustive Scale Questions Even / Odd number of values (3 or 4? 5,7 or 6?) Total number of values ( or ?) Label each point on the scale, or use “anchors” ?

Open-ended vs. Closed Questions Open-ended Items (“Fill in the Blanks”) Useful for “exploratory” data collection ADV: Respondents (Rs) aren’t “led” by some list of available choices / opinions DISADV: Requires much more work - to quantify, researcher must categorize and “code” responses Closed-ended Items (“Multiple Choice”) Useful when all of the available responses are known ADV: 1) Easier to quantify, and 2) Rs are reacting to the same stimulus materials (some list of choices) DISADV: 1) Researcher may miss some important reasons/options

Multiple Choice Items The Options (possible values) in MC Items should be: Mutually Exclusive Exhaustive Consistent Linear (follow in a logical order) Clear and concise Limited in number (so the researcher can make sense of them)

In-Class Team Exercise # 3 - Part II First Do as Individuals, then produce a Team Version: Example of a BAD Item Which of the following describes your CURRENT living situation? 1) Married, no kids5) Divorced 2) Married, 1-3 kids at home6) Divorced, 1-3 kids at home 3) Married, 3 or more kids7) Divorced, 3+ kids at home at home8) Unmarried, but have kids 4) Unmarried a) What mistakes make this a bad item? b) How would you fix this problem? Deliverable : a written answer to a & b

Scale Items Even / Odd Number of Values Even - no midpoint - forces users to choose Odd - has a midpoint - allows a “neutral” response (I prefer Odd) Number of values or point scales: 3-4 is simple but may not allow “discrimination” 9-10 is usually overkill is usually best (I prefer 7)