Sociological Survey of Students at Florida International University - Research Proposal Example

Dissertation Chapter

Methods

Participants

126 participants of research study were aged between 17 years and 59 years. A large number of participants (62.70%) were younger with ages between 17 years and 23 years. Mean value of Age was found as M=25.50 and Std. Deviation value as SD=9.14. Both, genders male and female had an equal number of participants as 63 for each gender. Among 126 participants, 122 were English speaking participants. Total population (N-126) was consisted of Caucasian (N-39) (30.95%), Hispanic (N-57), (24.24%), Native Indians (N-2), (1.59%), African American (N-15), (11.94%), Asian American (N-5), (3.97%) and Others (N-8), (6.35%).

Materials and Methods

There are two ways of obtaining the consent of participants i.e. oral and written. In the first form, a record of written consent of participants is kept in a hard form in a file. In some cases, both written and oral consents of participants are combined together to supplement a standard information. However, current research study involved the oral consent of the participants. Oral consent is a flexible as it involves the discussion on consent of participants between researchers and participants. Oral consent method used in this study was consistent with the ethical principles (Leong, 2008). Oral consent of the participants impacted positively on researchers because discussion between researchers and participants provided clarity on research purposes to participants.

For current study, material used was consisted of the questionnaire on two pages (hard-copy) as well as writing pencils. Questionnaire contained three parts, part one on subject and condition questions so it had only two questions, part two on demographic features of participants contained six questions and part three contained remaining seventeen one questions . Excluding five questions all other questions used a Likert scale to rate the answers of questions. Instructions to participants were provided in three different colored questionnaire forms such as red colored, black colored and green colored.

Current research was taken into two phases. In the first phase, researchers approached the participants at various times and asked them to participate in the current research study. Oral consent of participants has been discussed in the beginning paragraphs of Materials and Methods section. Potential risks and advantages of participants were presented with the research material. If participants accepted the request after oral discussion, the researchers shifted to the next phase. In the second phase, participants were randomly provided one of three questionnaires in red, black and green colors.

First part of the each different colored questionnaire had instructions on top of the provided different colored pages of questionnaires. Once the participants finished the instructions’ reading, they were asked to continue to move on the next parts of the questionnaire. Researchers instructed to participants for filling all parts of the questionnaire.

In part 2, participants were asked to state the answers about subject and conditions and also five questions (1-5) on demographic features of the participants. So, next two questions were about “feel good” or “feel bad”. Participants had to just choose one of the six options 1) strongly disagree to 6) strongly agree. For the next sixteen questions in next part, participants had to state their answers either in the same way as they replied in previous questions. For last question number seventeen in the same part participants had to answer based on three Likert scale. To answer the question 1, participants were asked to encircle only one option from given two options of Florida International University (FIU) Students either Yes or NO. It was aimed to know that whether participants were student of Florida International University. For the second question, participants were asked to write about the condition as it was an open ended question. From question 3 to question 8, participants had to state their demographic features by just choosing one options from given or writing by their own relevant demographic features. For the next part where demographic related questions were asked from participants, they were allowed to leave any question for which they did not want to answer.

After filling up the survey forms, researchers scored the every question of the survey by counting the correct answers. Researchers separated two types of variables from the survey’s answers of participants. They highlighted the dependent variable by using pink colored ink and independent variables by using the blue colored ink. As noted earlier, that there were several independent variables and short number of dependent variables. For example, “Anna's Character Responsible” and “Anna's Behavior Blame” were taken as two dependent variables. Researchers focused on these two dependent variables to know that how the Anna’s character responsible and Anna’s behavior blame were dependent on the independent variables.

Results

In the context of dependent variables, two variable namely as Q2 “Anna's Character Responsible” and Q6 “Anna's Behavior Blame” were analyzed against the independent variable Q16 “The World is a Just Place”. The standard deviation for Q2 was found to be as SD=1.116 with Mean value M=3.169. For Q6, standard deviation SD=1.018 with Mean value M=4.047 was determined. On the other hands, standard deviation of independent variable Q16 was found to be SD=1.145 with Mean value M=3.396.

A Chi-square test was applied to check that two chosen whether dependent variable depended upon the independent variable or not. In Chi-Square test, Pearson Chi Square test is used to evaluate the data. Pearson Chi Square value is 33.388 that is not equal to zero. It helped the researchers to determine the difference between two perceptions which was not equally important for the world. Because significant value is more than 0.05 in Chi Square test, it indicates that no significant relationship between independent and dependent variable exists. In such cases, when significance value is less than 0.05 the null hypothesis is rejected. It is also expected in Chi Square test that expected values in at least 20% cells should be more than 5.

ANOVA test was conducted to check the relationship between independent variable and two dependent variables. Researchers wanted to see relationship about behavior, character responsible and Anna’s thinking about “The World is a Just Place”. To see the results as given in table, it clearly shows the obtained p values as p=.623 for Q2” Anna's Character Responsible” and p=0.420 for Q6 respectively. It is concluded that independent variable is normally distributed. F-value for Q2 variable is 0.702 and 1.001 for Q6. Significant value is more than alpha of 0.05 (p> 0.05) in both cases. It indicates that results are consistent with the null hypothesis. To test the hypothesis F Value is more appropriate in the current study. A hypothesis was designed as given in the following:

H0: There is no significance relationship between Anna’s behavior blame, character responsible and her thinking about that world is a just place.

H1: There is a significance relationship between Anna’s character responsible, behavior blame and her thinking about that world is a Just place.

Sig. value is also known as p-value that helps to determine that if an independent variable has an effect on dependent variables. For both dependent variables, p-value is greater than 0.05, it means that there is no meaningful difference between two groups for every dependent variable. A one-way ANOVA was applied to compare the 126 participants’ responds for two types of personality features. These personality features were Anna’s character and Anna’s behavior. A Tukey (HSD) test was further performed to determine the differences. There was no significant difference between two dependent variable for the independent variable because Mean values remained same for both variables. From Tukey HSD output, it shows that both perceptions about Anna’s character and behavior for the world are same because no significant difference is found between perceptions about Anna’s character and Anna’s behavior for this world.

Discussion

Ann’s Character Responsible and Behavioral Blame was to determine from the perception that world was a just place. In other words, character responsibility and behavioral blame were used to determine whether world is valuable or it was a just place. It was to determine that views of targeted population were aligned with these statements or not. Obtained results do not support the predictions as character responsibility and personal behavioral blame have not been impacted by consideration about world just a place. Majority of the participants do not consider that character responsible is relevant to people’s perception about world just as place. Initial prediction that character responsible and behavioral blame are close to world just as a place are not supported. Researchers proposed the questions to get the opinions of the participants about perceptions on character and behavior relevant to statement that world was just a place. Researchers were expecting that external perception of people would support their ideas. But, practically, it did not occur in the current study. If it is accepted from opinions and participants’ replies in the current study that world is just a place and it has no connection with the character’s responsibility and behavioral blame. In the next, what are other independent variables which are associated with the character responsibility and behavioral blame of people? In the next study, focus will be to include civilized society to determine the character responsibility and personal behavior towards other people in a society.