Extension Project D

I participated in two survey’s and one interview. The surveys were all questions with either short responses or multiple choice answers. Each one I participated in was on a different subject. I wanted to see how the research differed between subjects. The first survey I took was about fashion. This was kind of a warm-up for me. I find fashion an interesting and fun subject, whereas some of the other subjects were heavier. They started with a bit of demographic information such as my age. I thought that was useful because it could show the different trends in time periods vs ages. The creators on the study also did a good job of giving a last option or “other” after all multiple choice questions so people could fill in some different answers and the researchers could see where they might have missed information. It can also add to what they already knew on the subject. It was a short survey so it kept me focused the entire time.  Their purpose was to find out different people’s style and how it changed based on their identity at the time…or did their clothes change their identity? Guess we will find out when the research is over!

The second survey was about reading for pleasure as a college student. This one is a topic with a lot of emotion for me. We spend the first part of our lives being taught how to read for pleasure and why it is so important then as we get older we are stripped of the time to read for pleasure. Their survey asked a lot of quantitative questions such as how many hour per week I spend reading and then how that time divides up. This seemed very effective because they can easily compare numbers. One of the first questions was about where I came from, this can help them see if location has any affect on how much students read for pleasure. It also helps them see what kind of diversity they have. I am an average female, my answers can help add to the group of standard answers because I am not one extreme or the other.

Survey’s themselves are very limited because they are constrained by the options the reader has to select from them. They leave little room for growth outside of what the surveyor already knows. They can also be written to get a specific answer out of people because of the author’s biases. To be fair, interview questions can also have the same result.

The last one I did was an interview. This one was about art. They needed non-art majors and I fit perfectly into that category! As a business management major I do not have any experience with art other than enjoying it from afar. The interview was different from surveys because it seems to be targeted at finding the different emotions people feel. The questions were about my thoughts and experiences. The final result will be quotes and feelings and thoughts. Interviews are a more abstract idea and have more flexibility than a survey. They are also more personal because the interviewer and the interviewee get to know each other a little bit. Maybe this adds a little bias to the research? But I think it mostly just broadens people’s understanding. This was more of a conversation, it flowed very nicely.