Survey Design

Research Question: Can activities encourage family/parent involvement? 

Hypothesis: If families participate in all activities sent home then they are more likely to be encouraged and be involved with their children. 

Dependent Variable Question: How much were you involved in the activity?

On a scale from 0-10, 0 being not at all and 10 being a great amount

Independent Variable Question: On average, how many hours a week do you work?

0-10, 11-20, 21-30, 31-40, 41-50, 51 or more

The dependent variable question I chose for this was “How much were you involved in this activity?” This question is relevant because in my literature review I discuss the importance of being involved with children and staying involved. Staying involved can help a child throughout their entire educational career. For the independent variable I chose “On average, how many hours a week do you work?” This question is relevant because in my literature review I discuss some things that can hold parents back from being involved, one of them being work. Working too much can make it hard to do things with children since it seems like there is not enough time.

Survey research can be hard. It can take a lot of time and patience. A lot can happen to impact the original goal of the survey. It is always best to have the goals be specific, but have backups if need be. There is no guarantee that a researcher will get the results that they had hoped for so having a backup plan or being able to work around it always helps. It is also good to know that the population you are surveying is representative of the whole population so a researcher can get a good grasp of what they are studying. It is not easy to do survey research as a lot can change in a short period of time.