As one of our assignments for this class, we have to create a survey to do in person research about our topics at Santa Clara. I think this is a truly interesting way to do research for a paper, as it gives a truly personal view into how the topic affects people at the same institution that we are all at together.

To create a survey, there are several thing to consider. 1) what do you want to know? 2) how do you want to ask your questions? and 3) how are you going to get people to respond to your survey? I have come up with conclusions to try and answer these questions in regards to my own survey.

First, I need to figure out what I want to know. My topic is how the internet affects student life at Santa Clara, so i need to create questions that accurately gauge the levels of internet use at the university. I also need to clarify whether that use is for education or entertainment, as those are two very distinct categories of internet use.

To achieve this goal I am going to create questions that ask for hourly counts of internet use in both categories, so I can compare them side by side for accurate results. The next thing to tackle is how important people think their internet use is in relation to their education, so I shall create questions that have the responder rate on a scale of 1-5, agree to disagree, things such as: The internet is important to education, The internet hinders my ability to learn in class, I would be able to be a successful student without the internet, and etc. I think that this will give me good insights into people’s opinions about the internet in higher education.

The final obstacle is getting people to fill out my survey. I hope that my teammates will fill out the survey, as well as people from my class, but I am also going to send out emails and facebook messages attempting to get people to fill out my survey, as the more responses I have the more accurate my conclusions will be able to be.

Nate Miller