Mass Communication Research Group Assignment #4 Writing a Questionnaire

1. Impact of Tennessee budget problems on quality of education and campus morale.
   
2. Impact of new President.
   
3. Student voting in national, state and local elections.
   
4. Effects of the Master Plan.

• Question description (10 points)
  • Give a short name (no more than three words) for the variable, e.g. "Satisfaction with Parking," "Value of Education," "Rating of Teaching".
  • Write an appropriate survey question for the topic. Questions should not be double-barreled, leading, etc.
  • Describe how the question will be coded, i.e. how you will assign numbers to various responses? Indicate the appropriate level of measurement for the question. What sort of descriptive statistics will this provide?
  
  
• Reasoning for inclusion of questions on survey (10 points)
  • Explain how your questions could serve as the basis for an interesting news story to be published in the Daily Beacon, i.e. what news values are evident from the question?
  • Explain how the question could be used to help members of the university community solve the problem. Address students, student government and the UT administration.
  
  
• Statistical hypothesis testing (10 points)
  Using at least one of the five questions you have made, write one hypothesis that you would test using chi-square test for independence, and a second hypothesis that you would test using the independent samples t-test. For each hypothesis (worth 5 points each), indicate:
  • the rationale behind the hypothesis; i.e. why do we think the hypothesis would likely be true?
  • an explanation of the significance test; i.e. assuming your hypothesis turned out to be significant, how would you interpret it? Though you can't provide actual numbers, you should be able to indicate the general interpretations for each inferential statistic.
  
  
• Professionalism of Report (10 points)
  This report should be completed in a professional manner, i.e. clearly and concisely written with no mechanical errors. This includes errors of spelling, grammar, usage, etc. The report MUST be turned in by the deadline, or your group will lose a letter grade per day late.

Question Description

Question 1. OVERALL CAMPUS CLEANLINESS

Please rate the overall level of cleanliness of UT's campus.

1. Very clean
2. Clean
3. Somewhat clean
4. Somewhat dirty
5. Dirty
6. Very dirty
7. DON'T KNOW/NO ANSWER

The coding will be the values 1 through 7 as indicated by the respondent. This question is measured at the interval level, which will provide the mean of the respondents' answers.


Question 2. IMPROVE BEAUTIFICATION VOLUNTEER

Would you volunteer to improve campus beautification without receiving material compensation?

1. Yes
2. No
3. DON'T KNOW/NO ANSWER

The coding will be the values 1 through 3 as indicated by the respondent. This question is measured at the nominal level, which will provide the mode of the respondents' answers.


Question 3. IMPROVE VOLUNTEER HOURS

How many hours would you be willing to volunteer per week to improve campus beautification?

The coding will be the values 0 through 168 (number of hours in a week) as indicated by the respondent. This question is measured at the ratio level, which will provide the mean of the respondents answers.


Reasoning for inclusion

The issue of campus beautification is newsworthy due to the news values of proximity, conflict and impact. Campus beautification has proximity as students are required to be on campus to attend classes. There is conflict as students living and working on a dirty campus may become distracted by the trash that accumulates in the area, especially after a football game. This may affect their self-esteem, which could lead to poor grades. There is also impact as prospective students may decide not to attend UT due to the poor upkeep.

Descriptive statistics would indicate if the UT student population actually considers campus beautification to be a major problem, and what the students would actually do to help with the problem. If the survey found that students would be willing to volunteer time to clean the campus, they could receive a free lunch for every hour they volunteered to help. SGA could form a committee overseeing the project that would coordinate the cleaning efforts, and provide recognition for those people who actually give their time to help clean the campus. The UT administration could provide more trashcans, ashtrays and recycling bins for the campus, which could help cut down on maintenance costs.

Statistical Hypothesis Testing

1. Underclassmen are more likely than upperclassmen to say they'd be willing to volunteer to improve campus beautification without material compensation. The rationales for this one-tailed hypothesis are that:

1. upperclassmen are trying to graduate and have less time to devote to campus activities
2. underclassmen are looking for ways to become involved in the UT community
3. upperclassmen have visited other SEC campuses and have noticed that ALL of them look trashed after a football game
4. underclassmen understand that this will be their home for the next few years and want it to look good

We would use a Chi-Square Test for Independence to test this hypothesis. Assuming that the upperclassmen underclassmen variable is a dichotomy with Freshmen and Sophomores coded 1 and Juniors and Seniors coded 2, the independent variable would be nominal. The dependent variable (Improve Beautification Volunteer) is a dichotomous variable and is already nominal. If the hypothesis is correct, the Chi-Square test will have a significance level less than 0.05 and the percentage of underclassmen saying they'd be willing to volunteer to improve campus beautifcation will be greater than the percentage of upperclassmen saying they'd be willing to volunteer.

2. Members of social organizations will volunteer more hours to improve campus beautification than students who are not members of social organizations. The rationales for this one-tailed hypothesis are that:

1. members of social organizations provide volunteer time for many philanthropic activities.
2. people who aren't members aren't used to scheduling extra time.
3. people who aren't members are more likely to work extra hours, thereby not having time for social organizations or working to clean the campus.

We would use a Independent Samples t-test for this hypothesis. "Fraternity Sorority Membership" would be the nominal independent variable, and "Improve Volunteer Hours" would be the ratio dependent variable. If the hypothesis is correct, the t-test will have a significance level less than 0.05 and the mean number of hours volunteered by fraternity and sorority members will be more than the mean number of hours volunteered by students who are not members of a social organization.