Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Fall 2014
Assignment Overview
Your final project must include some element of primary research. Whether you plan
to conduct interviews, design and distribute surveys, or both, you will have to
submit to me a list of well-crafted, carefully worded questions before you distribute
the surveys or conduct the interviews.
Remember that for surveys to be useful, you must demonstrate that youve
surveyed a representative sample of the population. Effective survey questions are
specific and unbiased, and they take into account your audiences preferences,
needs, and time constraints. Effective interview questions are clear, focused, and
open-ended (unlikely to result in yes-or-no answers).
For this assignment, youll write a minimum of 10 questions for a survey or an
interview. (You must identify which format you intend to use.) If you are using a
surveyparticularly a face-to-face/paper surveyyou must design and format your
assignment to reflect the survey you intend to distribute.
Youll begin by providing full context for your questions. For interviews, you will
identify your sources, and describe when and how youll contact them; for surveys,
describe your survey population and how and when you will be distributing and
collecting the survey. Next, provide the text you will use to introduce the questions
to your respondents.
Your options for this assignment are as follows:
All 10 questions may relate to one survey, or one interview.
If youd like to submit both interview and survey questions, please write five
of each.
You may write five interview questions for one source, and five interview
questions for a second source, but they must be substantially different.
This assignment is intended to give you good practice in writing survey and
interview questions. Its expected that your actual questions will change as your
research continues and you receive feedback from your classmates and me. Please
Assignment 3
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note that your survey may have more (or possibly fewer) than 10 questions; youll
hand in 10 so I can give you feedback that will help you craft further questions.
Whatever primary research you conduct should be completed three weeks before
the final project is due. Do not wait until the last minute to request interviews or
distribute surveys, or you run the risk of insufficient responses, which can
jeopardize the reliability of your data, your conclusions, and ultimately the viability
of your proposed ideas.
Grading
Your survey/interview questions will be graded on these qualities:
Content (50%)the extent to which your questions reflect an understanding
of the context, purpose, and audience of the survey or interview; the
incisiveness of your questions; relevance of the questions to the problem or
opportunity you intend to address;
Approach and organization (20%) preciseness, conciseness,
appropriateness of language; objectivity of the wording (no leading
questions);
Implementation plan (20%)proposed techniques for sample selection and
distribution (for surveys) or means of contacting (for interviews);
Style (10%)grammar, consistency, correctness, organization, clarity,
structure.
As indicated on the syllabus, this assignment will count as 5 percent of your total
course grade. It will become part of your final project portfolio, though it will not be
regraded at semesters end.
Assignment 3
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