I have talked a lot about my archival research project, and that’s because it was my first assignment for the class for spring quarter. Now that we’ve finished that, it’s time to switch gears to our second assignment: Surveys.

Who likes surveys honestly? Unless there is a Amazon Gift Card Drawing… (Source)

I imagine you are familiar with the dozens of surveys you get from restaurants, airlines, and pretty much every single company and organization that wants to get your feedback. My email is always full of those, and I often dread them as well. But as a method of research, it can be one the most effective if you do it right.

Surveys are a great way to gather mass amounts of data necessary for quantitative research. Using platforms such as Google Forms (it’s amazing how easy it is to use) we can send out questions to large audiences and gather numerical data which we can evaluate objectively.

For me, I was a little confused on what I wanted to survey people on. Stemming from my archival research paper, I saw two Potential paths.

1. Ask students what they feel the role of religion is on campus, and see how much of an influence it has. Compare this to the university’s idea on it.
2. Ask students what centers they are involved in, and what perceptions they have of these such programs. Compare this to what the center actually are trying to represent on campus.

After consideration, my first one seemed a little boring to me. Somebody before me has surely done studies on what religion means on campus, since it is such a widely discussed issue on campus.

That’s why I went with number two. My objective here is to look at what students get out of these programs at SCU, how they perceive it, and how important it is for them. Then, I want to compare/contrast this with what the missions are for these centers, what they do, and how they WANT to be perceived. I think there will be many interesting gaps between how students see them and how the programs want to be see. Through this I hope to gain insight on what there institutions actually represent on SCU’s campus.

This image looks pretty “religious,” but do students see it this way? Is that the program’s intention? (Source)

So how did I actually do my survey? More next time…