SO300 Research Methods Discussion On Childhood Obesity

Introduction  On Childhood Obesity

Welcome to Unit 5. This unit continues the portion of the course about research designs. This week we will be going over the ubiquitous method – The Survey. Surveys, inventories, and questionnaires appear to be the “go-to” method to collect data. These methods have the advantage of collecting a lot of data very quickly, but have the disadvantage of participants not providing the truth, skipping questions, lying, or misunderstanding the questions. This week you get the opportunity to delve into these issues and create your own survey. This is an important skill to develop.

Instructions

Every Park University student as a Google Account/ Email associated with their ID number. The Google Account gives you access to Gmail AND other applications like Google Drive and, for this Unit, Forms.

The goal of this unit’s discussion is to create a Google Form survey of at least 10 closed-ended questions (this doesn’t include sociodemographic questions, e.g., Sex).

Designing effective surveys is a skill that can make you an appealing job applicant. Effective surveys are more challenging than you make think. You’ve been exposed to a number of survey examples so far in our course.

Check out the following surveys, with an eye on how they are constructed, the items (IVs) that are presented, and the ways participants can respond (DVs), AND the number of items that are used to measure a construct.

• – The General Social Survey (GSS)– There are 364 pages associated with this questionnaire – regarded as the premier questionnaire for social measurements.
• – 12-item GRIT scale– this is a scale that uses 12 items to determine if a person self-reports whether they have what it takes to persistent through adversity.
• – Social Desirability scale– This is a scale that measures a person’s self-report inclination to alter behavior to look good to others in 33 items.
• – Multidimensional Experiential Avoidance Questionnaire– This questionnaire measures a person’s self-report inclination for 6 different types of avoidance in 62 items.
• – Dissertation (Nathan Hudson’s 2016 – The impact of attachment anxiety on susceptibility to false memories)– This dissertation example will give you experience with a constructed questionnaire for Nathan’s doctoral degree. You may find the questionnaire at the end of the manuscript in the appendices.

NOTE: There are thousands of surveys out there, but I hope that the sample above gives you a variety of lengths, items (IV’s), and response sets (DV’s) to give you some ideas.

For this Discussion you will need to:

1. Log into Google Forms
2. Create a Questionnaire with:
   1. Instructions section at the beginning of your instrument and make reference to the following:

• Please answer as honestly as possible
• There are no right or wrong answers
• Participants’ responses will be anonymous (or confidential) and private. This depends on whether you ask for names or personal information.

1. at least 10 closed-ended items (IV’s) (not socio-demographic ones) for your area of interest.

• You can have some socio-demographic items, but need at least 10 closed-ended items.

1. Suggestion – you can start with a template like Course Evaluation or Assessment
2. Choose a response set (DV’s) to fit your items.
3. Choose a theme for your questionnaire.
4. Open the questionnaire for responses and copy the link to insert into your discussion.

In the Discussion area present the following:

1. A Title for your questionnaire and the online link for it.
2. A brief statement of why you selected the items you did (the IV’s)
3. A brief statement of why you selected the response set(s) you did (the DV’s)
4. A brief statement of the advantages and disadvantages of your questionnaire.

In summary, for this assignment, the skills that you are going to practice are:

1. Google Forms experience,

2. Survey construction, and

3. Survey evaluation.