Log 1

In the first week of my final project, I spent the majority of the time crafting my own survey. Upon initial thought, the survey seemed like a short project, but what I found was that it was much more time consuming. Once I figured out the proper service, I had to use the software to set up the framework for my questions and survey. After coming up with the questions and proper way to organize the statements, I then tested the questions on a subject to see what his/her reactions were and what kind of general feedback I could receive. I wanted to investigate the kind of responses and emotions that arose from my questions and if they were targeting my desired information. There is a degree of uncertainty that should be present and I should not know everything, but I needed to make sure they were not too confusing or off topic.

The comments and feedback I received was positive and seems as though I am asking the right kinds of question. There were one or two questions that need to be cleaned up in order to rid them of ambiguity, but the survey is a good start moving forward and will be ready to be sent out to people in the next couple days. The other aspect of the survey that I need to address is making sure I acquire the proper sample population. If I got 20 male, athlete samples, I cannot truly say that I am studying fashion at Bowdoin. I need to make sure I have a proper sample size and that I am getting as many diverse respondents as possible. There does not have to be a certain number of what I should try and get, but I want as much data and responses as possible.

As is the case with most surveys, the potential issue is getting people to actual take the survey instead of having it sit in their inbox for a few days and forget about it. My current plan is to talk to people in-person and ask them if they would take the survey. Once they agree, I will then email it to them and hope the personal touch will increase my participation rate. I am going to start by administering the survey to people I know personally and then breach out from there. Since I am using a service, the data will be quantified and displayed in an extremely organized manner, however I also need to make sure that I read the data for what it is instead of directing the data towards what I want it to be.

My next step in this process is to administer the survey and to have people respond to it. I expect to send it to a specific group of people I have easy contact with, so they will be able to let me know if I need to change or alter questions or overall integrity of the survey. There will be additional steps once I have the data, but until then I need to focus on making it air tight and as effective as possible.