Survey Experiences

Survey Experience

Last week, I received several surveys in the class. I need to ask TTU students to finish these surveys, at least 6 American males and 6 American females. It is exactly a big problem about how to get data. Firstly, I tended to look for TTU students, who were available and helped me to accomplish the surveys, in my department, Mechanical Engineering. That is because there are many TTU students coming to this building to attend class, and leaving after class every day. I argued that I could look for TTU students who were available when they came and left. However, I just spent a whole morning to finish only 4 surveys. The efficiency was really low, because most of the TTU students who came to attend class were not available since the class was beginning. Therefore, I didn’t believe this method was useful. Then, I decided to go to the Student Union to finish the survey, where flexible spaces are provided for TTU students to accommodate any type of meetings or activities. There is a vast number of TTU students having fun or taking any activities at Student Union every day. After I entered the gate of the Student Union, I began to look for some TTU students to finish the survey. Fortunately, all of TTU students were very friendly and nice, and I finished all of rest of the surveys at Student Union with the help of TTU students.

By the way, there are two little troubles during the period of doing survey. The first one is that one of females did not understand what parental leave was. Of course, I made a brief introduction about parental leave for her. The other is that, one of males says that he just had done the same survey. It is totally possible, because our subject should cover at least 320 TTU students, which is not a small proportion of TTU students. Finally, I finished the survey part and got the valuable data by the deadline successfully.

However, some TTU students made comments about the survey. As for Question 5 for Black Lives Matter, a male recommended that racism was a problem rather than a big problem. Therefore, we should add a choice to distinguish whether or not, racism is a problem. As for Question 8 on Parental Leave, a female recommended that this question was invalid, because anyone can vote for anything. (Yiting Dong)

How I got 13 surveys

In the academic writing esl5315 course, we made an agreement that each person should obtain 13 surveys from Texas Tech University students, 6 for American males, 6 for American females, and one for ourselves. Half of them I acquired from student union building and randomly asked students who were willing to do the survey. Most of the people were nice and liked to do the survey. Just a few of them complained a little about the length of the survey but still did the survey. None of them rejected me for filling in the survey. Overall, they were very nice. One of my friends helped me to collect the other half part of the surveys. Being a teaching assistant in hospitality and retail management, he knows many undergraduate and graduate students. He introduced me to many his friends in his department and they all were very nice and willing to do the survey for me. I didn’t receive many comments from the participants. The most frequently asked question was that "what was this survey for"? "It sounds interesting and cool". In brief, it is a good and special experience to ask strangers to do the surveys.(Cheng Ta)

　 Survey Experience

I collected my data in the student union in Texas Tech. I targeted the students who were sitting in groups, and were having a conversation. These group of students seemed to be more relaxed; that is why I thought they would be more willing to fill in the questionnaire.

I asked them if they wanted to participate in a survey about social media, parental leave, and Black Lives Matter. Their response was very friendly and they were actually happy to fill in the questionnaire. While filling the first part of the questionnaire (Social media), they were laughing and blaming each other for using Facebook so much, some were mentioning that they actually feel embarrassed to be addicted to social media, and they do not know how much time exactly they spend on it. However, when they started to fill in the second and third part of the questionnaire, they were quiet and more serious; no one was making jokes anymore.

I did not want the students to fill the survey in a rush, so during the time the participants were filling in the questionnaire, I waited in a corner and I kept my distance. By far everything regarding distributing and collecting the questionnaires went smoother and better than expected. There was only one exception, and that was one of the female participants who took almost 30 minutes to fill in the questionnaire, and I think at some point she wanted to leave without filling it. All the other students took about maximum of 10-15 minutes to fill in the survey.

After gathering the data from these two groups, I asked 6 other females who were sitting in groups of two, but none of them agreed to fill in the questionnaire. These six students mentioned that they either wanted to study, or they were about to leave the SUB. (Sahar)

Survey Experience

I had a wonderful experience doing the survey on Social media, Parental leave and Black Lives Matter. To be honest, it was not difficult finding people for my survey. Most of them were staff members and students from the Learning Resource Center, Preston Smith Library at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. This is the place where I work as a student assistant in 3D-printing. For my last four surveys, I chose to go to the Main Library of Texas Tech University. There were two male students who turned down the survey as they were running late for their class and had to finish an assignment. Overall the people were friendly and enjoyed doing the survey. My colleagues who work at different shifts completed the survey and placed it on my desk with a sticky note thanking me. Also, the people at the library were friendly too. (Abhishek Kumar)

Experience During Survey

We, a group of students from ESL class of Texas Tech University, agreed on writing individual paper on “Social Media”. To write the paper, we chose our own hypotheses and concurred on a few generalized questions for Texas Tech students to reflect their opinions and ideas regarding the topic. For the collection of data, every student was assigned to collect the answers of those questions from at least 1 international and 12 United States (6 males and 6 females) students from TTU. For my case, I chose TTU library and Mechanical Engineering Department as the best place to look for students in their leisure time (i.e. lunch time). The reason for choosing Mechanical Engineering Department was due to hanging around there for most of my time. Accordingly, the library was chosen due to availability of students. Consequently, I engaged myself for accomplishing my part for the survey. Most of them tried their best to give the honest answer. The most interesting experience was: some of the students added some comments, if they thought it differently. Altogether, I had no trouble at all with those participants which made me very grateful. (Minhaz Ur Rahman)

About Survey

For carrying out survey about the topics Social Media, Parental leave and Black Lives Matter, first our class of ESL 5315 course shortlisted a few questions and agreed upon them unanimously. Each student was required to take a minimum of thirteen surveys which included the student carrying out the survey, six American males and six American female Texas Tech students. I carried out this survey at South West Collection library at TTU where I used to work as student assistant and at Chemical Engineering Department. In my surveys five out of six males were White American and one was African American. Also, five out of six females were White American and one was Asian American, although there was no question asked regarding the ethnicity of students surveyed. Students were very friendly and happy to fill out the survey regarding topics mentioned. One of the African girls said that the survey was partial because it was supposed to be filled out by American students. She was eager to fill it out so I surveyed her as well. Most of the students had questions about Parental Leave and it seemed that they were less aware about this topic. (Pradeep Vyawahare)

Survey experience

I collected 12 questionnaires (6 from males and 6 from females) in Texas Tech University library on a Sunday afternoon. In the beginning, I encountered some trouble. When I finally encouraged myself to approach a desk with four male students and asked if they had time to do a survey, they turned me down because they did not really have time and needed to do their homework. Then I turned to a nearby table with three female students, who also turned me down with similar reason. I went around the library, and the students were really concentrated on their study. It was so embarrassing for me to interrupt them. So I went back to my seat, depressed. I almost gave up before I told myself, “why not give it another try?”. This time, I approached four males who seemed not so focused and nicely asked if they had time to help me out. To my surprise, they agreed! This gave me much more confidence! Then I asked politely, confidently and tried to be more professional, to another three girls and get their help. In the end, I got 12 questionnaires completed. The students were nice overall, although some refused me at the beginning, but with smiles and they probably indeed did not have time. Among the people I surveyed, there was a black male student. I was afraid he would feel offended and refuse to answer because there were some questions for Black Lives Matter. To my astonishment, he did not show any unhappiness and finished the questionnaire. Two female students said they liked Social Media and Parental Leave parts; the questions are well devised and are very interesting. (Rui)

Survey Experience

This is the first time that I conducted surveys. I went to the SUB right after our class on last Tuesday. I thought that it was a good place, but I realized that maybe it was not, at least for me, as soon as I got inside of the building. Most students were there having food or trying to get some food. I did not want to disturb people enjoying food since it is hard to hold a burger on one hand and hold a pen on the other hand and take a survey. So I went to another area where most students were resting instead of eating. I wanted to go to a table with a group of students so that I could get several surveys filled out at the same time, but I did not want to disturb people chatting with each other. Finally, I decided to talk with a girl sitting at the long chairs besides the wall. She was playing on her cellphone by herself, so I thought that it was fine to disturb her. I asked: “Do you have a few minutes to take a survey?” She raised her head and looked at me. I bet that she was thinking who I was, where I came from, whether I was a student, why I was doing a survey, and whether I was a bad person. It was possible that she just watched some bad news on her cellphone. She said: “I am Ok.” So I said: “That’s all right.” I turned to another girl sitting beside her who was also playing on cellphone and asked: “Do you mind taking a survey?” She looked tired and said: “I don’t think I have time.” I said: “Ok.”

I got depressed. I felt that it was hard to conduct surveys in the SUB because there were too many people in the SUB and any person even they were not TTU students could get inside of the SUB. The two girls might not feel safe enough, or I might just look like a bad person. So I thought that it might be easier to go to Math building which is the building that I am in almost every day. I felt that Math building was the safest building at TTU and I knew a lot of people in that building. I got out of the SUB. Surprisingly, a boy asked: “Do you want to touch my dog?” I looked at him. Oh, there was indeed a little puppy in his arms. Another boy said: “That is not his dog.” Anyway, they were a group of students promoting their fraternity out of the door of the SUB. I asked them whether they could fill out a survey. Two of them said yes. A third boy asked me what the survey was about. Then I gave him a survey to fill out, too. While he was filling it out, he asked: “What the hell is parental leave?” I explained to him, and he got it.

After I went back to my department, the surveys got filled out fast and smoothly. I saw two girls doing homework in the hallway and asked them whether they had time to fill out the survey, and they agreed. I also asked a boy who was also studying at the same place, but he said that he did not have time. Another boy who was sitting outside a classroom and waiting for class helped me to fill out one survey.

That was what I did on Tuesday, and on Wednesday I brought some candies with me and gave students who helped me candies. You could not image how happy they were when they got candies. And as a result, I felt happy, too. It was hard to find American girls in my department, but I walked through all the offices and finally found one. We met at the orientation meeting of our department in the beginning of the semester. She filled out one survey. And a boy who was sitting beside her table also agreed to fill out one survey. So I got three girls and five boys to fill out the survey. I saw another graduate student who was microwaving his food. He was happy to fill one out since we met several times in our department. One of my friends in our department also took the survey. And while I was looking for this friend, a Chinese guy asked me what I was doing, and he volunteered to fill out a survey. A girl who was working at the main office took the survey. A girl who was studying in the tutoring center took a survey. And another girl who was studying in her office took a survey. She asked whether it was Ok to choose two answers, and I said it was fine and it was better if you could choose the best answer. She also said that for question number two in Black Lives Matter part, African-Americans was not a race and should be changed. Finally, I took one survey. So I have got surveys from eight boys and seven girls in total including seven American boys and six American girls now.

In conclusion, I think it is easy to start with the person that has met you before. And it is better to bring candies with me. One difficulty is that most of the surveys were filled out by white students since I am afraid that the last part of the survey might make black students feel uncomfortable. But I did try, and the boy said that he did not have time. Overall, conducing this survey was a good experience for me. (Yu)

Paragraph about collecting

I found 6 female students and 6 male students in Livermore Centre and Chemical Engineering Building which is located at the north part of TTU campus.

I distributed 8 pieces of survey sheets to undergraduate students whose lab teaching assistant is me when they had a break in the Chemical Engineering Building. Most of them were pleased to do me a favor; that accounts for the reason that I am the TA, personally. They took short time while filling out the first page, Social Media part. However, they consumed a longer time for the second page, Parental Leave and Black Lives Matter part. I noticed one black-skinned student wrinkled his brows in concentration when reading the Black Lives Matter part. What’s more, students like to discuss questions on the first page where Social Media questions lies. I think the strategy of putting the questions of social media first works well; it helps students’ relief and helps them let their guard down. A problem came to me that 6 out of 8 surveys were from male students. We have had to accept the truth that the ratio of men to women in the engineering department is pretty much higher compared to other majors.

Next step, I needed to find four more female students to complete the survey. I had a mind to choose girls in Livermore Center. I found four girls who were sitting in the porch and talking with each other. After I explained the purpose of our survey, two of them refused politely due to schedule of class. The other two girls were delighted to take the assignment and completed it quickly. I found another two girls outside the kitchen room. One of them who was up to graduate said she cared more about ‘what kind of things can social media benefit for your career’. She insisted social media was useless for a person who is struggling with hunting for a job. It’s better to take more time to attend job fairs, meet with people and develop one's own relationships. (Tianyu)

Experience of collecting the data

I hadn’t started collecting the data of our survey until this Monday. At the beginning I went to the department of Chemical Engineering building. I looked for people who weren’t struggling with the homework or project and this strategy worked well. A male student accepted to help me and everything went well. Then I headed for the engineering center and got help from a male and a female student. The first refusal happened outside the chemistry building and I thought the male student was not busy at all at that time. However, more than 80% of the people wanted to help me and I got 13 results easily. Only one female student asked me about the definition of parental leave. (Jin Hao)

001 Survey Experiences