COM564 was a great way to delve into research projects. I had feared before class started that I would be spending hours researching random topics that I don’t really care about, but this class was all about how to conduct research with REAL people. It was fun!
Research Critique
Our first project of COM 564 required each student to analyze a research project that had been done to test the reactions of young people to an anti-tobacco ad campaign.
The scenario was that I had been hired by the Washington State Department of Health to look over the research report. My job was to evaluate the agency’s studies, raise questions and note potential problems so I could advise Department of Health personnel going into the next round of meetings.
This evaluation consists of four separate studies. First, the agency conducted a survey of over 400 young people (page 4) who have visited a website created as part of its campaign. The agency calls these young people MOB members and they can go online to request a free t-shirt and can volunteer to fill out a survey among other things. Second, the agency conducted “street interviews” (page 10) with 31 young people at malls and in a skate park. Participants viewed the ads and provided feedback to the agency team. Third, the agency conducted six “friendship circles” (page 16) with a total of 33 participants in South Seattle, Spokane and Yakima. These friendship circles are like focus groups. Finally, the agency conducted online focus groups (page 18) with 37 young people, mostly women. We haven’t discussed focus groups in detail yet, but these are focused group discussions led by a moderator.
You can read my full Research Critique.
Qualitative Research Case: Adolescent Tobacco-Control Focus Groups
This was a very in-depth project. I had to read through focus group transcipts and complete a variety of tasks, including:
- How I would recruit a sample for these groups;
- A moderator’s guide;
- A results section, including quotations from participants that supported each assertion;
- An executive summary;
- A discussion of implications
- Questions from the professor regarding limitations, external and internal validity, etc.
This project took by far the most amount of time than any of the others. For some reason copy and paste was not an option, so every quote had to be typed out. I also had not been really sure how much of my own opinion I should offer in the results section, so I held back. Once I received feedback from my professor, I knew that I should have been more specific. I did learn a lot, and have learned that focus groups have a lot more to them than meets the eye.
You can read my full Qualitative Reasearch Case.
Survey Research Case
I really enjoyed working on the survey for this project. We were given the scenario that a new brick and mortar store in the University District of Spokane. The assignment was to create a cover letter and survey to determine the needs of the people living nearby. We also had to do some calculations to determine the sample size we wanted, and the margin of error.
One of the biggest parts of this project was to have at least 10 people pretest the cover letter and survey, and revise them based on feedback. This process allowed me to interact with some friends that I hadn’t really talked to in awhile. I asked for some help on Facebook, because I recently moved, and haven’t met many people in my new town yet. I got some really great feedback, and I had fun designing the survey.
I actually even enjoyed doing the math, which is a huge surprise. As someone with a B.A. in English, math hasn’t always been my strongest subject, but this I really was understanding well.
You can read my full Research Project.
Final Case Study
The final case study for COM564 was a little bit of everything. The scenario was for an Engineering and Architecture department at a University. They wanted help determining how to engage alumni, especially those under the age of 35, to increase donations. They wanted information on a redesign of their website, the creation of an E-zine, and social media usage. There were other things that they wanted, but we were instructed to focus on a few things, as everything that was wanted was not realistic. I chose the aforementioned items. To create the project, I had to design four focus groups, a mail survey, and an experiment.
My design for the four focus groups was, two to include Boeing employees who are also CEA members. One will be aged 35 and under, the other will be age 36 and over. I chose this sampling because approximately 1,400 CEA members are employed at Boeing, thus making the likelihood of recruiting members high. The other two focus groups will be the same age ranges, and be held in Spokane. We also had to design a moderator’s guide for the project.
This survey, like the last project, required pretesting, but only with five people, rather than 10. Even though it wasn’t required to get engineers to pretest, my husband is an engineer, so he had to help me 🙂 I always like my surveys to take 10 minutes or less, so I tried to be as focused on the technology information as possible.
For the experiment, I wanted to beta test a new website, so with a random sample of participants, I designed an experiment where half of the participants were assigned to the control group to analyze the old website, and the other half to analyze the new website. All group members will be timed for how long they stay on the site (old or new) and page clicks will be tracked through analytics.
Even though this was the biggest project of the semester, I really enjoyed doing it. Having covered most of the material all semester made working on the focus groups and survey enjoyable. I struggled a bit with the experiment, but it was a challenge, and I like challenges. I was even able to get this project turned in early, which felt great!
You can read my full Final Case Study.
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Tyana Kelley 