I'm conducting a research project on "to what extent are college students addicted to text-based college communication?"
this is my survey I created. Is this a good survey? and how do I evaluate my responses from, let's say, 50 surveys to table data to show how addicted/or not addicted colleges are to text-based communication?
Cellular Phone Usage Survey
Please note- Your individual answers will be anonymous and completely confidential. Thank you in advance for your time.
Gender
Male,Female
Age on your last birthday
16 – 20 years old, 21 – 25 years old, 26 – 30 years old, 30+ years old
Classification
Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, Senior
Are you:
White, Non-Hispanic
Black or African-American, Non-Hispanic
Mexican American, Puerto Rican, or Hispanic
Asian American
Native American or American Indian
Other:
Q1. How long have you owned a cell phone?
Q2. Please indicate by what mode of communication you use your cell phone most frequently to communicate with others?
yes or no to the following statements regarding texted-based communication
Q3. Do you spend more time than you think you should communicating through the mode of communication indicated above?
Q4. Experienced any type of withdrawal symptoms (e.g., increased depression, moodiness, or irritability) when you can not immediately respond to a message, email, or notification?
Q5. Spent longer periods of time than necessary responding to emails, messages, or finding directions via navigation?
Q6. Continued to use the on-screen or manual keyboard on your phone after experiencing soreness in thumbs or fingers?
Q7. Had any of your friends or family members complain about the amount of time you spend on the phone?
Q8. Been spoken to at school for not following school/teacher’s cell phone usage policy?
Q9. Been reprimanded at school for non-compliance to policy due to messaging (e.g., text, email, instant message, notification, etc.)?
Q10. Been spoken to at work for not following “on-the-clock” or job cell phone usage policy?
Q11. Been reprimanded at work for non-compliance to policy due to messaging (e.g., text, email, instant message, notification, etc.)?
Q12. Found it hard to concentrate at school or work when you receive one or several email(s) or message(s)?
Q13. Has the convenience of text communication or mobile internet caused your work productivity to decline in any way?
Q14. Ended a relationship because of a text, email, or other notification?
Q15. Lied to someone about the amount of time you spend texting, emailing, or using any other text based communication?
Response Question
16. Would you consider yourself addicted to any text-based (texting, email, instant messenger, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, or other social network) cell phone communication?
If yes, what communication(s) or application(s) would that be?
Thanks in advance!
Clarify: "Text-based communications" as written here could also include books, newspapers, magazines and "snail-mail" letters. This could be clarified by adding word, "electronic." College students can be addicted rather than "colleges."
make Q2 multiple choice.
What are your criteria for "addiction"? Answer to 16? Combination of answers to other Qs? That would help you determine your method of analysis.
Consider how are you going to collect the surveys to represent college students as a whole.
It would be better to phrase other Qs as multiple choice rather than yes-no.(e.g.,Q4. When you cannot immediately respond to a message, email, or notification, do you feel A, B...other (clarify), none of above.)
That would make responses easier to categorize.
I hope this helps.
Thank you very much PsyDAG. I appreciate someone actually taking the time to review and make an honest effort in giving advice. I noticed some errors in my post that would have better clarified the research (thesis). It should have read "text-based cell phone communication". The research question is: to what extent are college students addicted to text-based cell phone communication? (which I do, earlier in the paper, define as any program or application that requires text input of any kind to communicate with another person, but not to include calling, such as those listed in Q16. In the theoretical lens of the thesis I do define what criteria I am constituting as addiction for text-based cell phone communication.)
I will revisit some of the questions and even considering possibly a Likert scale for one or two. After I gain responses, is there any program other than excel that you may recommend to graph the data? I'm not sure how the data should be represented/analyzed for college studenets as a whole. Thanks in advance.
The survey you have created seems to cover a range of questions related to text-based communication and its potential addiction among college students. However, to determine whether it is a good survey, it is important to consider a few factors:
1. Clear objectives: Ensure that the survey's objectives are well-defined and align closely with your research project. It seems like your objective is to explore the extent of college students' addiction to text-based college communication.
2. Relevance and validity of questions: Review each question to ensure they are relevant to your research topic and will provide meaningful insights. Consider conducting a literature review on addiction to text-based communication to identify validated questionnaire items used in previous studies.
3. Survey length: The length of the survey should be appropriate to avoid survey fatigue and increase response rates. Ensure that the number of questions is manageable for respondents.
To evaluate the responses from the surveys and present the data in a table format, you can follow these steps:
1. Data collection: Collect responses from a sufficient number of college students (e.g., 50 surveys) to ensure a representative sample. Make sure responses are anonymous and confidential to encourage honest answers.
2. Data analysis: Go through each individual response and assign numerical values for each question (e.g., 1 for "yes" and 0 for "no"). This will make it easier to summarize and compare the data.
3. Tabulation: Create a table with each question as a column and the corresponding numerical values and responses in rows. Calculate the frequencies and percentages for each response.
4. Interpretation: Analyze the table data to identify trends and patterns. Look for high frequencies or percentages in specific responses to assess the level of addiction to text-based communication among college students.
5. Statistical analysis (optional): If you want to explore the relationship between variables, you can consider conducting statistical tests (e.g., chi-square test, correlation analysis) to determine the significance of any observed relationships.
Remember to consider the limitations of your survey, such as potential biases, sample representativeness, and the self-reported nature of the responses. Triangulating your findings with other research methodologies can further enhance the validity of your conclusions.