========================================================================== Team member names: Katherine Swintek kswintek@andrew.cmu.edu Evan Korol ekorol@andrew.cmu.edu) Ivan Busharov ibouchar@cmu.edu Jaclyn Bernard jbernard@andrew.cmu.edu ========================================================================== For Team Assignment I.2, please * Turn in a complete, revised draft of your Team Assignment I.1, covering all the points [(a) through (e) for project 1, and (a) through (f) for project 2] below. Please label these points in your revised draft, so they are easy (for me!) to find and read. * The revised draft should include very carefully thought out information about Target Population (item b below), Sampling Frame (item c below) and Method of Data Collection (item d below). Note under (a) below that some citation of sources for background information on each project proposal is also needed. * Also make any additional revisions required or suggested in my comments below. Please revise ALL PARTS of the proposal for next Tuesday. Even if I have not commented much on one or more points, all aspects of the proposal can be improved. * Assignment I.2 will be graded using the same scheme below, but with higher standards throughout. ========================================================================== Project Proposal 1: What portion of CMU students know about and/or utilize safe walk and escort services and how could we increase both knowledge and utilization of these services? OVERALL: * EVERYONE can do a better job of convincing me why each of their projects is interesting enough to actually bother to do. * good idea. it is a topic of concern around campus, and someone could possibly do something about the results you find, if they know them. (a) Interesting research question? Doable? Each team member provides one piece of previous research or results on this question? * Since you answered from the longer project outline (a-e & f), you did not provide past research/results on this project. Please provide one citation, and at least one sentence on that citation, for every member of your group. * pls answer carefully for I.2 (b) What population do you want to make inferences about? "We wish to make inferences about CMU students both undergraduate and graduate who live both on and off campus." * this is a good start. * pls answer carefully for I.2: TARGET POPULATION * mainly make sure there are no ambiguities - all students, full time students only? Would commuters be included? etc. (c) What population will you sample? Is this different from (b)? "We will sample CMU students both undergraduate and graduate who live both on and off campus and whose email address we can access." * how will you contact these students? Usually, the sampling frame should either be a list of students that you can take a random sample from, or a set of students that are well defined by actions you take (e.g. all students that pass by the fence between times X and Y on days A, B and C -- not necessarily a great frame [undercoverage?] but an example of a frame that is not a list). * pls answer carefully for I.2: SAMPLING FRAME (d) How do you plan to carry out the survey & why? "We plan to carry out the survey using an Internet based survey and then distribute the survey using a Facebook group and d-lists because CMU is an internet based campus and this will increase the number of respondents. This method is also the most efficient" * Relying on two methods (rather than just one) for contacting students is a good idea, you will capture more students that way. However, it is not enough to send email to "everyone" or to post a generic invitation on facebook to participate in your survey: students who respond to a general invitation are different from those who do not respond; they may have different attitudes about dining as well. * once you have contacted the students, how will they respond? Will you set up a webpage (surveymonkey?) for them to go to [less work for you but a lower response rate]? Will they put their answers in an email back to you [higher response rate but potentially more work to extract answers out of emails]? Will you arrange to meet with them face to face? Etc. * whatever the method, nonresponse will be a big issue. - Face to face interviews make for great response rates but would be at least very time consuming to carry out. - if you could get a student phone book from each campus, you could conduct a phone survey. this might be effective at getting better response rates but not use up a ton of your time. - if you could get a list of email addresses for each campus, you could conduct an email or email-and-web survey. - for email/web surveys nonresponse will be a bigger issue. - for email and web surveys, get only about 25% or less response rate. - how can you improve this with followup and/or prenotification (e.g. postcards)? how many times, and how, will you followup? - who responds, who doesn't? how would this affect biases in your results? - if you are stuck with low response rate, what would you need to know or be able to do, to argue either 1. the sample you got is still like a representative probability sample; or 2. you know what adjustments to make so that the sample can be treated as a representative probability sample * pls answer carefully for I.2 MODE OF DATA COLLECTION (e) What variables will you measure? "We propose to measure knowledge of existence of safewalk/escort, knowledge of how safewalk/escort work, utilization of safewalk/escort, where someone lives (on/off campus versus campus housing/non campus housing,) how do students get to campus, interest in the programs and ways to increase usage." * this is a good set of variables; information gained could possibly lead to change in the escort system, if it becomes known. * these will become more refined as you revise your proposal * pls answer carefully for I.2 ========================================================================== Project Proposal 2: How/why do 28X consumers differ during peak and nonpeak travel times and how does the increase in 28X usage during peak times affect the consumers? OVERALL: * EVERYONE can do a better job of convincing me why each of their projects is interesting enough to actually bother to do. * this is potentially interesting, and something someone might possibly do soemthing about. * a few "do you like" or "are you satisfied" questions are OK, but augment these with factual questions that might reveal specific changes to propose for the 28X. the trouble with "do you like" questions is that either the answer is boring (everyone likes it or is neutral) or causes bad feelings (everyone is dissatisfied but we failed to find out why, so there's no guidance from the survey about how to fix it). (a) Interesting research question? Doable? Each team member provides one piece of previous research or results on this question? * I like that this topic involves specific questions of fact, instead of just "how do you like...". What sort of actions could possibly be taken (and by whom) based on the results of this survey? * Since you answered from the longer project outline (a-e & f), you did not provide past research/results on this project. Please provide one citation, and at least one sentence on that citation, for every member of your group. * pls answer carefully for I.2 (b) What population do you want to make inferences about? "We wish to make inferences about potential and actual 28X consumers including both college and non-college students. This differs from the population in (c) because this population includes people who are not current 28X consumers" * this is a fairly well-defined population. You may wish to reduce it a bit though since one segment of this population (non-riders) is not reachable from your sampling frame. * pls answer carefully for I.2: TARGET POPULATION (c) What population will you sample? Is this different from (b)? "We will sample actual 28X consumers during both regular and peak travel times including both college and non-college students." * I agree that this [and elaborated below in part (d)] is about all you can do. It will not be a probability sample, but if you choose times and days carefully it can still be argued to be a fairly representative sample. Please work on this question (times and days, to get a good reorpesentation) for the revised proposal. * pls answer carefully for I.2: SAMPLING FRAME (d) How do you plan to carry out the survey & why? "We plan to carry out this survey using pencil and paper while visiting 28X bus stops and riding the 28X during both regular and peak travel times because this seems to be the only option for data collection." * you will have to keep the questionnaire fairly short, to keep people's attention and accomodate the fact that some people will have to leave quickly (e.g. to get on/off the bus), breaking off a longer survey questionnnaire before it is completed. * you should also think about nonresponse - who responds, who doesn't? how would this affect biases in your results? - if you are stuck with low response rate, what would you need to know or be able to do, to argue either 1. the sample you got is still like a representative probability sample; or 2. you know what adjustments to make so that the sample can be treated as a representative probability sample * pls answer carefully for I.2: MODE OF DATA COLLECTION (e) What variables will you measure? "We propose to measure the frequency of 28X use during peak and nonpeak travel times, desired destination (airport vs. Robinson,) why does each consumer take the 28X, and does the rush of consumers during peak travel times affect consumer satisfaction/usage of 28X and usage of other port authority bus lines" * continue to refine this list of variables (and interesting relations between them) as you revise the draft * pls answer carefully for I.2 (f) Sample questions for off-campus project? * sample questions are a good start - some of the questions are of the "do you like it" variety. It is better to replace (or followup) such questions with questions about *why* they feel the way they do. - gender and race are interesting. what other background variables might be interesting or relevant? * pls answer carefully for I.2 ================================================================== Total grade: Project Proposal 1: (out of 48; 8 pts/part) Project Proposal 2: (out of 56; 8 pts/part) ----------------------- Total 104 NOTES: On I.1, everyone gets 100 points, regardless of the comments I made above. On I.2, I will grade each part about out of 8 pts/part. This come out to a bit more than 100 pts, which will just be extra credit for a team that really nails I.2. Each person on the team gets the team score recorded in the gradebook. If your team gets 84 pts on I.2, then each team member gets 84 pts in the gradebook. ==================================================================