Friday, September 14, 2007
Survey, Murvey!
I am posting out of frustration more than anything. I was so excited about my paper and getting the surveys completed but I am not having great luck. Some of the schools who were planning on doing them have since decided not to. Currently I only have one school completing them and possible a second, but still waiting to hear back from them. I have now sent the survey to all of my email contacts so those with kids or who know kids can have them fill them out. I also belong to a mom’s group of 150+ members so I have reached out to them to have their school age children and friends fill it out. Is it normally this difficult to get research done? My daughter has students doing research at her daycare and I always let her participate. A lot of the parents from the one school who is participating aren’t letting their children be involved. Researching the family further has led me to come across the fact that most of the parents who say No are divorced parents. Hmmm… wonder what this tells me? I think one thing I should have done different is not mentioned the divorce aspect on the letter that was sent home to parents. I should have just stated that I was studying children’s perceptions of home and left it at that. Next time I guess huh?
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3 comments:
Jaclyn,
Boy!!! I have to commend you for the amount work you are doing! I think I can understand how some schools can be “doubting” of letting you and give some questioners to some kids, but I hope this week some of the schools let you do your research!
Gus
Jaclyn,
That is crappy! I hope you have more success with the two schools you may have in line. Another thought is to approach adult "children" of divorce. They may have more to offer in terms of "home" and can remember what it was like and give a more experienced response?
Welcome to the world of questionnaire research! A low return rate is one of the things we all get used to, and there are ten thousand techniques to improve the rate. Most of them cost money. But I think this paper, as a first step to a longer investigation, won't be hindered by your few responses. You'll still be able to develop a working hypothesis to take forward.
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