Extracurricular Involvement During the Great Recession Jacky Duong 1.

The Concept In our attempt to explore college students experience with the Great we looked at how UC Berkeley students managed their

Recession,

involvement in extracurricular activities during the spring 2012 semester. Our study examines whether or not the decline of the economy personally influences the college students decision and ability to partake in

extracurricular activities.

2.

Measurement Strategy In order to explore the relationship between college students

involvement in extracurricular activities and their experience with the Great Recession, we created a systematic questionnaire which includes one structured, open-ended question and six unstructured, closed-ended

questions. We examined if and how college students personally coped with financial burdens by measuring two indicators- time and money. If a student did not have time to partake in an extracurricular activity because they had a job or because they could not afford it, we would quantitatively analyze the data as having been affected by the Great Recession. We also looked at Did they These

reasons as to why the student would choose to participate.

participate for career advancement or over for recreational fun?

indicators attempt to give us some quantitative data to support our openended question.

3.

Data Collection Our data is based on pencil and paper questionnaires that Daniel Norton

Luna and I designed together but administered separately. Before asking random individuals to fill out the questionnaire, I made sure to ask if they had attended UC Berkeley in spring 2012 semester. This protocol was to insure that our respondents were not incoming freshmen of whom we assume are still financially dependent on their parents. Each respondent was asked to I asked them if they

complete the questionnaire as well as to evaluate it.

thought the survey was clear or difficult, offensive, boring or repetitive. Ten students completed the questionnaire, usually within four to seven minutes, no one aborted the process of filling out the questionnaire, and only one person refused. 4. Evaluation 1) The first I problem I encountered during the pretest was in selecting I

the appropriate setting in which to administer the questionnaires.

administered the questionnaires in the East Asian Library rather than on Sproul Plaza (which was where Daniel administered some of his

questionnaires)

because

thought

selecting

people

in

sedentary

environment would increase the likelihood that they would agree to take our survey. As it turned out, trying to administer questionnaires to people in a library was not the best decision because people were usually studying and probably did not want to be bothered. One person refused to take the

questionnaire because she was needed to study for her final and could not expend precious minutes. slow to convince. In addition, there was one respondent who was

The respondent agreed to take the questionnaire after I

guaranteed him that it would take less than five minutes and skimming over the questionnaire himself. This respondents reaction points out just how

important the physical presentation of the questionnaire is in securing respondent cooperation. Other problems that became apparent in the administration of the pretest had to do with misunderstanding and nonresponse. Though most

respondents did not have trouble answering the open-ended question, one respondent was unsure what we meant by "financial pressures. He was able to figure it out by looking at the statements in Part II. For the closed- ended questions, some respondents had difficulty selecting an answer simply because they did not have a job. The way we structured our questions made it hard for students without jobs or recently got a job in the summer to give a response. 2) Several respondents stated that their involvement in extracurricular activities was influenced by financial concerns that were not necessarily a

result of the Great Recession. There were also respondents who stated that time commitment rather than money consuming was a reason that affected their involvements. Combining the responses to the close-ended questions, we would make the error of analyzing them as having been affected by the Great Recession even though the data is reliable. The closed- ended

questions produces quantified data that is hard to misinterpret the meaning. Unlike reliability, the validity of our data cannot be assessed directly and so by looking at the respondent's unstructured response, we can gauge a more accurate meaning to the answers despite the very low validity. The students unstructured responses revealed that some students selected Neither in lieu of "somewhat", "kind of, and "yes and no. 3) For the second draft, I would delete question 2 in Part II because the question fails to be mutually exclusive and exhaustive. I would also explain the concept the Great Recession and extracurricular activities. I would

keep everything else the same because the questionnaire was well received and we obtained responses we had hoped for. None of the respondents found the questionnaire to be offensive, boring, or repetitive. In fact, one student liked how we varied our closed-ended questions which forced them to focus and read carefully. 4) Even though I worked with a partner, I still felt awkward and uncomfortable during the actual process of doing this exercise. This is mainly because I have difficulty approaching strangers and soliciting their

cooperation.

In addition, I felt like I was not able to fully develop and share

ideas about connections and explanations with my partner because we collected our data from different areas on campus and from only six closedended questions . None of Daniels respondents were athletes receiving

scholarships and none of my respondents were graduate students. Because our sample sizes were so small and our questionnaires so short, it is hard to generalize our findings from the sample to the target population.