COMM 250 Agenda - Week 7

1. COMM 250 Agenda - Week 7 Housekeeping Today: RAT2 Return: C1 Lecture Continuing Surveys: Choices re: Scale items, layout Examples ITE 4

2. In-Class Team Exercise # 4 - Part I First Do as Individuals, then produce a Team Version: Example of a BAD Item Which of the following describes your CURRENT living situation? 1) Married, no kids 5) Divorced 2) Married, 1-3 kids at home 6) Divorced, 1-3 kids at home 3) Married, 3 or more kids 7) Divorced, 3+ kids at home at home 8) Unmarried, but have kids 4) Unmarried ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- • What mistakes make this a bad item? • How would you fix this problem? Deliverable: a written answer to a & b ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3. Solution Example of a BETTER Item Which best describes your CURRENT living situation? 1) Married, no kids 5) Divorced, 1-3 kids at home 2) Married, 1-3 kids at home 6) Divorced, more than 3 kids at home 3) Married, more than 3 kids 7) Unmarried, no kids at home 8) Unmarried, 1-3 kids at home 4) Divorced, no kids 9) Other (Please specify: ______________ )

4. Solution Example of a Better APPROACH What is your marital status? 1) Single 3) Divorced 2) Married 4) Widowed How many children do you have? ___ ___ How many CHILDREN currently live with you? ___ ___ How many other ADULTS currently live with you? ___ ___

5. Scale Items Even / Odd Number of Values • Even - no midpoint - forces users to choose • Odd - has a midpoint - allows a “neutral” response • (I prefer Odd) Number of values 3-5-7-9 or 4-6-8-10 point scales: • 3-4 is simple but may not allow “discrimination” • 9-10 is usually overkill • 5-6-7 is usually best • (I prefer 7)

6. Surveys The rest of Lecture 7 will be in the form of examples of questionnaire items on Overhead Transparencies - these will that highlight the lessons discussed in the following slides from Week 6.

7. Open-ended vs. Closed Questions Open-ended Items (“Fill in the Blanks”) • Useful for “exploratory” data collection • ADV: Respondents (Rs) aren’t “led” by some list of available choices / opinions • DISADV: Requires much more work - to quantify, researcher must categorize and “code” responses Closed-ended Items (“Multiple Choice”) • Useful when all of the available responses are known • ADV: 1) Easier to quantify, and 2) Rs are reacting to the same stimulus materials (some list of choices) • DISADV: 1) Researcher may miss some important reasons/options

8. Multiple Choice Items The Options (possible values) in MC Items should be: • Mutually Exclusive • Exhaustive • Consistent • Linear (follow in a logical order) • Clear and concise • Limited in number (so the researcher can make sense of them)

9. Determinism & Free Will Determinism • Everything is determined in advance • If science knew all the rules, it could specify all outcomes (predict all events) • It seems to work with billiard balls – does it work for human behavior? • But does this imply that there is no free will? (We’ll return to this when we get to statistics.)