1. English 1312 Spring 2010 R.J. Lambert

2. Primary vs. Secondary Research What definitions did you find? What is Primary Research? Why is it useful or meaningful?

3. Primary vs. Secondary Research Secondary Research: Think of this as library, database, and internet research. This research studies what others have written about a topic. Primary Research: Research that you will conduct yourself. You will choose a group or phenomenon to study, decide how to study it, and present the results.

4. Why conduct your own primary research? Discover different views on a subject. Develop and test out a position. Practice document design in a real-world application. Get first hand accounts of facts, consequences, values, beliefs. Practice clear, precise, and unbiased writing that connects writing to research. Write from a position of increased authority and confidence.

5. Problems you want to avoid Poorly designed primary research strategy/questions. Small sample sizes Biased questions/survey format Results that cannot be mathematically compiled Meaningless results that are not tied to BIG Research Questions Inability to compile, interpret, or use results in a meaningful way

6. Keep in mind your Research Questions Your primary research should directly relate to one or more of your final research questions for the Literature Review.

7. Different types of Primary Research Simple surveys: Online, phone, F2F, paper Good for quantitative data such as opinions, values, beliefs, self- reported behavior, socio-demographic information Observations: Either overt or covert, photo studies, ads Good for quantitative data such counting things, watching behaviors (such as “sharking” or cell phone use), culture studies Simple data collection: Prices, “how many” type questions. Good for quantitative data, MPG, price comparisons Interviews/case studies: F2F, online, phone, paper Good for qualitative, in-depth data, rich testimony.

8. Envision the end result before you begin If you don’t know what to do with the results of their primary research: at the outset, consider how you will tabulate or count the results of your data collection.

9. Envision the end result before you begin Today, you will create a Primary Research Design on your personal Wiki. Consider your survey questions/observational criteria/interview questions. Ask: How will you count/categorize that? Think about the “so what?” question. Why will the results be important?

10. Envision the end result before you begin Think about how you will visually display the results of your primary research: Table of text and possibly numerical values? Chart or graph? Map or flow chart? Other visualizations of data? (we will discuss visualizing your data next week)

11. Primary Research Ideas To encourage larger sample sizes and results from which you can count, categorize, or calculate a central tendency: Survey Monkey or other online tools. Teams or group surveys that incorporate more than one person’s survey questions. You may collect from groups they are already a part of. Get started ASAP to ensure you collect your data in time for the Literature Review draft, due next Wednesday!

12. Resources for Primary Research Use Ch. 6 of Compose, Design, Advocate to think about asking questions and where to look for answers. If you will use a survey, write 5 closed-ended questions and 2 open-ended questions. This should give you enough data to tabulate and quote. Each survey should take less than 20 min. to complete. Be realistic about sample sizes. Most will compile data by hand or use simple spread sheets. A survey should include more than 10 but less than 100 people, for this assignment at least.