Sociology assignment -01
Workbook Activity # 5 Survey & Interview Questions
In this exercise, you will turn your research question from Activity #2 into data collection material for survey or interview research, considering the pros and cons of each of these data sources. Please write out your answers in complete sentences and include information about your processing. Include your former question in full and justify your responses when necessary.
- Recall the research questions you brainstormed in Activity #2. Review your questions, any comments I made to them while grading, and what you have learned since this activity.
- What was your original question?
- Frame your question so that it can be answered using survey data. Did you have to change your question? Why or why not?
- Using the same research topic, frame your question so that it can be answered using interview data. Note if and how this differs from your previous question.
- Who is your target audience? How might you recruit participants to participate in your research if you conducted it in survey form?
- How might you recruit participants to participate in your research if you conducted it in interview form?
- Continuing to work with the same research question, come up with 5, close-ended survey questions you would ask respondents, including their possible responses. Be sure to follow the guidelines for good survey questions from Chapter 8.
- Continuing to work with the same research question, come up with 5 open-ended questions you could ask were you to conduct in-depth interviews on the topic.
- Now, answer your survey questions as if you were a survey participant. After doing so, critique your questions. Did they make sense? Were the answers given sufficient to the question asked?
- Now, answer your interview questions as if you were an interview participant. After doing so, critique your questions. Were any of them leading, or yes-or-no questions? Were they too easy or too difficult? How did you feel talking about the topics you asked yourself to discuss? How might respondents feel talking about them? Be sure to include both your answers, and your critique in your response to this question.
- After completing the above exercises, do you think your topic is more suited to survey research or interview research? Justify your answer, using material from the textbook and the above experience. Consider factors including cost, accessibility and recruitment of participants, and overall feasibility of data collection, as well as data analysis (especially consider which source of data would best answer your question).
Activity#2 – Research Topics & Questions
- Do some brainstorming to try to identify some potential research topics of interest. What have been your favorite classes in college thus far? What did you like about them? What did you learn in them? What extracurricular activities are you involved in? How do you enjoy spending your time when nobody is telling you what you should be doing? What questions do you have about current events, political issues, or cultural happenings?
- After your brainstorm, pick the topic that feels most interesting to you. Reflect on your feelings about the topic. Are they positive or negative? How strongly do you feel about the topic? What is your position in relation to the topic? Why is it important to you?
- What are some things you already know about this topic? Where does that knowledge come from? List 5 things you know about your topic, and for each one, categorize the type of knowledge as either Common Sense, Traditional, Authoritative, Intuitive, Logical or Empirical
- Do either your feelings or existing knowledge of the topic potentially pose a threat to your ability to research the topic? Explain why or why not.
- Pose two questions about the topic you have selected. One should be an ethical question, and one should be an empirical question.
- Finally, keeping in mind Blackstone’s 5 criteria of a good research question in section 4.5 of the textbook, come up with three possible research questions you could ask about the topic you have selected.