Putting together my survey was most definitely a challenging process. It started off relatively easy as I wrote down all of my ideas for questions that I would ask. However, after going over the different rules and wording to avoid from the powerpoint shown to us in class, I had to go back over my questions and cross check them to make sure they confided within the guidelines.
Not surprisingly, I found myself having to make several revisions of these questions, especially to the last one regarding censorship. I initially approached the question asking: Do you think school administrators should be given power to monitor the content that goes into student newspapers? I felt that there was some bias present because there was a clear conflict presented between the administrator and the student. Furthermore, I felt as though the question itself suggested that there was an obvious answer by asking whether an “administrator” should take part in what is usually a “student run” activity. While this was not my intent, I realized that I would not be able to explain this to the people I was surveying, so I ended up revising it to: Should there be restraints on what goes into student run newspapers? By whom, to what extent, and why?
Most of my questions are pretty straightforward and easy to answer as almost all of them are multiple choice. I also designed the survey in a way that I hope will make answering easier for the people participating in the study by trying to make the idea of each question build on top of that of another.
Something I’m worried about, however, is that many people won’t know a lot about The Santa Clara, which would cut their survey short and provide me with little insight or information on the topic, especially for my short answer questions. To avoid this problem, I should hope to get as many respondents as possible to ensure I have enough information to work with.
Images Cited:
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