========================================================================== Team member names: Stafford Brunk sbrunk@andrew.cmu.edu Atishe Chordia achordia@andrew.cmu.edu Seung Park seungp@andrew.cmu.edu Tony Poor tpoor@andrew.cmu.edu Henry Wu henrywu@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). * 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: Best Pizza Place in Pittsburgh [I skipped the "new dining system" survey idea since several other teams proposed surveys on CMU dining as well.] OVERALL: * EVERYONE can do a better job of convincing me why each of their projects is interesting enough to actually bother to do. * It is good that you are thinking of looking at some of the aspects of the pizza shops to find out what students do and don't like. Can you do this for the pizza also? * for the revised draft, please specify carefully: target population, sampling frame, mode of data collection, and revise the other parts of the proposal. * you've asserted that this is an off-campus survey but it could just as easily be an on-campus survey. If you survey everyone in pittsburgh, wouldn't you just get each person's local pizza joint? Restricting the population also has the effect of restricting the number of pizza places that will be compared, so that a clear winner or set of winners might come out. (a) Interesting research question? Doable? Each team member provides one piece of previous research or results on this question? * Please expand your research question to include the features of pizzas (and pizza shops, which you are already doing) and relate these respondents' likes/dislikes. Then others (shops, new students, etc.) can act on the results of your survey (shops can change features of their pizzas, students can choose a place to eat that they haven't tried before, etc.) * you have a set of references, good. * pls answer carefully for I.2 (b) What population do you want to make inferences about? * Since you did ABC from the short outline, you have not yet specified carefully a target population. Please do so for the revision. Do you want to continue to think about an off-campus population? If so, clearly state what it would be. Or do you want to restrict to, say, undergrads that attend CMU at the main campus? In that case, would you include Freshmen (who are on the meal plan)? etc. * pls answer carefully for I.2: TARGET POPULATION (c) What population will you sample? Is this different from (b)? * Since you did ABC from the short outline, you have not yet specified carefully a sampling frame. Please do so for the revision. * Usually, the sampling frame should either be a list of potential respondents that you can take a random sample from, or a set of respondents 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? * Since you did ABC from the short outline, you have not specified how you are going to carry out the survey. * 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? "a. determine how often people eat pizza and order delivery, and where their favorite pizza place is b. compare the quality of pizza in chains to that of smaller, local places c. examine each aspect of a pizza shop (pizza quality, non-pizza products, cost, business hours, delivery) and the influence of each on where one chooses to order from d. compare the importance of cost, delivery service, hours, etc. in the decision making of students vs. non-students." * this is a good start. if you can break some things (like 'quality of pizza') down into smaller objective questions (e.g. sauce sweet or salty? generous enough topping? etc. -- you can think of better versions of these than I!), then you can provide reasons that responents like some pizzas or pizza shops more than others. * pls answer carefully for I.2 ========================================================================== Project Proposal 2: Interaction with the Disabled and Its Effects on Self-Esteem 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 another project which could probably be an on-campus project if you wanted it to be. (a) Interesting research question? Doable? Each team member provides one piece of previous research or results on this question? "This proposal is interesting as one’s self-esteem is a topic of interest in recent sociological studies. There are also tens of millions of Americans who are either physically and/or mentally disabled, and this study will shed some light on what effects our interactions —whether they be little or much — with the disabled have on ourselves. Some potential clients for whom we might do this survey may be national disability centers, such as the YAI Network." * This survey seems to be trying to confirm past research. That's OK, but can you also gather information that a national disability center might be interested in taking action on? * lots of interesting references * pls answer carefully for I.2 (b) What population do you want to make inferences about? * Since you did ABC from the short outline, you have not yet specified carefully a target population. Please do so for the revision. Do you want to continue to think about an off-campus population? If so, clearly state what it would be. Or do you want to restrict to, say, undergrads that attend CMU at the main campus? In that case, would you include Freshmen (who are on the meal plan)? etc. * pls answer carefully for I.2: TARGET POPULATION (c) What population will you sample? Is this different from (b)? * Since you did ABC from the short outline, you have not yet specified carefully a sampling frame. Please do so for the revision. * Usually, the sampling frame should either be a list of potential respondents that you can take a random sample from, or a set of respondents 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? * Since you did ABC from the short outline, you have not specified how you are going to carry out the survey. That's OK, just need to do it now. * 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? a. Do interactions with the disabled have any effect on one’s self-esteem? b. How do interactions with the disabled affect one’s sense of personal accomplishment? c. If the person has much interaction with the disabled, how does this affect his/her level of occupational stress? d. What are some other factors that can affect these relationships between interactions with the disabled and one’s self-esteem, sense of personal accomplishment, or occupational stress level? * this is a good start. are there demographic, background or education variables that might also affect responses to the disabled? * pls answer carefully for I.2 (f) Sample questions for off-campus project? * as you expand this into a questionnaire, perhaps some of the research papers you cited can be helpful in question wording etc. * 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. ==================================================================