Assignment Task
Overview and Goals
To actually design a NON-experimental, Quantitative “Survey” (i.e., SUR) with your research group-i.e., a ‘questionnaire’ instrument – that aims to accurately and consistently measure a single construct / variable of interest to ALL of you (revisit J.tex for what “survey” research is). To statistically test how reliable (see J.tex for “reliability”) your ‘questionnaire’ instrument is!
Note :- This semester, we actually WILL be conducting SUR research online that will allow you to collect data on (and therefore be able to “describe”) just ONE construct or variable in a population that is “convenient” to us: undergraduate students. Disclaimer: This term, however, we will NOT actually be testing whether a linear relationship (i.e., a correlation) exists between your ‘SUR variable’ and some other 2nd variable. In other words, we will NOT use the survey you develop to test an actual hypothesis. RATHER, you will simply use this SUR project to develop your survey-building skills around your single construct / variable of choice. In other words, the primary focus you and your group should have is on collaboratively building a “GOOD” (i.e., valid and reliable) ‘questionnaire’ instrument! In fact one of the main goals of this research is to statistically test how “internally consistent” your ‘questionnaire’ instrument is! Remember: Hypothesis testing using surveys is pointless if the survey measures being used are not valid and reliable to begin with. So, being valid and reliable is what this SUR project aims to train you to be – wooohooo!
GENERAL FACETS
There are SIX (6) GENERAL FACETS that will need your careful attention, overall, for this NON-experimental, Quantitative SUR research study…
- Collaborating with your research group on Slack to make group decisions that aim to conceptualize and operationalize (i..e, build) your SUR research, AND to collectively refine all “items” that each of you individually create for your ‘questionnaire’ instrument.
- Individually building your OWN version of your group’s full ‘questionnaire’ instrument on Qualtrics, so that you can demonstrate your professional skills for formally compiling the instrument for actual distribution and actual data collection.
- Individually recruiting respondents to voluntarily take part in our SUR research, where they will be prompted to offer their responses on your group’s ‘questionnaire’ instrument.
- Collaborating with your research group on Slack to discuss whether and how the statistics we end up running on your survey data in fact show that your ‘questionnaire’ instrument is a “reliable” one (i.e., internally consistent).
- Individually identifying & finding another ALREADY-PUBLISHED ‘questionnaire’ instrument on a SECOND variable that should be theoretically related to YOUR survey variable (and also searching for and finding the relevant peer-reviewed journal article that accompanies that already-published survey). In your report (see below), you will imagine how you would use this SECOND survey to help “validate” YOUR ‘questionnaire’ instrument.
- Individually completing & submitting your own “Survey Research Study Report” document, offering your careful responses to each question. Remember: This is an individual submission on your part, where you craft all answers in your own words . You will submit your work via the TurnItIn link available to you on Bb.
SUR Research ‘Questionnaire’
Instruction: In “formal” and “scientific” writing style, type your responses to each of the following SIX (6) QUESTIONS right below each question item . Your final submission should be double-spaced, using 12-point font and abiding by 1-inch margins on the left and right.
1. What is the construct or variable at hand that you decided to study, and why ? What is the CONCEPTUAL DEFINITION you’re assigning to this construct or variable? In other words, in ONE paragraph only , offer the SPECIFIC CONTEXT that surrounds your knowledge and interest in this factor. Use this response a chance to “hook” your reader’s attention for WHY this construct is “interesting”.
2. In TWO separate paragraphs , offer a clear and complete description of the OPERATIONAL DEFINITION of your survey variable. In paragraph #1 , provide answers to the following in a way that makes your paragraph conceptually flow, naturally, from sentence to sentence: State again briefly what construct your survey aims to measure. How many items were there on your final ‘questionnaire’ instrument? Were your items statements or questions, and what kind of response scale was used? Be sure to state how many response options there were per item and what the qualitative labels were. Offer two example items. State how you would determine a single respondent’s *score* on your entire ‘questionnaire’ instrument if you were to imagine that underlying each qualitative response option there were quantitative numbers ranging from 1 to 5. What do higher versus lower respondent scores on your survey mean? In paragraph #2 , carefully and methodically, in an intuitive, well-arranged manner, recall the BRAINSTORMING PROCESS you and your group used for generating, refining, and finalizing your items. Use this also as an opportunity to explain to your reader HOW and WHY this process you used is about following a rigorous (i.e., scientific) and systematic (i.e., methodical) process.
3. In just ONE paragraph only , state in your OWN words what INTERNAL CONSISTENCY RELIABILITY generally tells a researcher about the survey s/he/they have administered. What statistical test are we conducting to show this kind of reliability? What was the initial internal consistency associated with your survey variable ? (i.e., Report your statistic here!) After assessing your initial internal consistency, did you subsequently need to remove any of the items from what you had originally declared to be your “final ‘questionnaire’ instrument” in order to *increase* your reliability? If so, which items did you remove (state them!) and what do you think it was, conceptually , about those unreliable items that seemed to initially reduce your survey’s internal consistency? And after removing those items and rerunning your statistics, what was your FINAL internal consistency? (i.e., Report your statistic here!) In one last sentence for this paragraph, how ultimately reliable is your survey instrument?
4. Let’s talk about the VALIDITY of your survey instrument. In ONE paragraph only , talk about the FACE VALIDITY of your questionnaire. That is, what is it about your survey instrument that you felt initially made it “face valid”? In addition, also talk about CONTENT VALIDITY. That is what is it about your survey instrument that you felt specifically made it “content valid” at first ? Give examples from your actual items with each of your explanations here. (See tex Ch 4, Section 20 to increase your understanding of these and other kinds of validity.)
5. Continuing your investigation of the VALIDITY of your survey instrument, J.tex states that CRITERION VALIDITY is: the extent to which people’s scores on a measure are correlated with other variables (known as criteria) that one would *expect them* to be correlated with (Jhangiani et al., 2019; p 99). According to this concept, your respondents’ SCORES on your survey instrument should, in principle, be related to their scores on another already-published questionnaire that measures a different, yet *theoretically relevant* variable ! Your task for THIS question is to find an actual PDF of a scientific, validated and reliable questionnaire instrument that is intended to measure a SECOND variable you imagine could be used as a “criterion” to support the validity of your newly made survey instrument. IMPORTANT: Also be sure to find a PDF of the accompanying peer-reviewed journal article that supports and describes how and why that particular questionnaire was developed! ( NOTE : finding and uploading to your “SUR Research Report” submission this additional 2 nd questionnaire instrument AND its accompanying peer-reviewed paper is worth TEN [10] points total !! )
Now that you’ve identified a separate questionnaire that measures a theoretically relevant variable to your survey’s variable, in just ONE paragraph , describe what that NEW variable is and provide the OPERATIONAL DEFINITION of that variable, making sure to properly CITE these other researcher’s survey instrument and paper. HUGE HINT: See how I asked you to state the operational definition of your survey instrument above in Question 2. In the same way here, provide a description in paragraph form of the survey for this NEW variable, where you address the following..
- How many items are there in this NEW questionnaire?
- What does this NEW questionnaire conceptually measure?
- What kind of rating scale does it use and how many response options are there on it?
- Provide one or two examples of the question items on this NEW survey.
- How is the survey instrument scored, and what do higher vs. lower scores mean?
6. In just ONE paragraph, offer the following pieces of information. First, accurately state in your own words what a CORRELATION statistic tells a researcher, when it comes to survey research. Next, state a PREDICTION for how you think the variable that you measured with your survey instrument might be related to the NEW variable that you’ve found the published questionnaire for. In addition: when it comes to a correlation between these two variables, what would you imagine the PEARSON R-VALUE to be, and why? Finally, offer a clear, conceptual rationale as to WHY you think your ‘SUR variable’ will be related to the ‘NEW variable’ in the way you predict.
