March 17, 2014
When it comes to attitudes and relationships “you see only
what you want to see, and what you see determines the health of your
relationships. Your attitude is a little thing that makes a massive
difference…” (Rai, n.d. para. 5). However, there are times when it is necessary
to obtain the opinions of many to assess the changing attitudes of a culture, such
as that of marriage in America. In an attempt to determine why these changes
have occurred it is necessary to obtain an attitude survey; thus, this essay
will discuss the purpose, issues, and instructions of said Marriage and Family Attitudes survey.
The Purpose of a
Survey
As a person who is passionate about family and the
well-being of children in our society, I am concerned about the trend of our
children having children out of wedlock. I would like to understand the mindset
of this trend on our young adults as to why they are shunning the path of
marriage and commitment for the quick route to parenthood and single dome. The
topic I have chosen for my survey is Marriage
and Family Attitudes. Like many others, as indicated by Martin, Specter, Martin,
and Martin (2003), I would like to examine what the variables are in people’s
lives (e.g., parental relationship status, religious belief, moral, and ethical
values, sexual roles, and social pressures) that are currently affecting decisions
about marriage and family. My target populations are young adults; male and
female of marriageable age, 18 to 25. Because of the target age range, I
believe that this survey would best be obtained as an online survey through
social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and academic social outlets. Once all
tests are complete they can quickly be tallied and scored. The survey would
include differently formatted questions such as the graphic rating scale,
true-false questions, and the Likert Format.
Design Issues
Finding the passion and defining the purpose of this survey
was not difficult; however, when it came to designing the survey there were
plenty of issues that needed to be overcome. Content, formatting, style,
writing, and wording issues are all part of that design issue process; although,
there are other items that are just as important (Hogan, 2007). For example, the
type of test used (e.g., ability, assessment, attitude, etc.) determines, for
the most part, what type of selected-response items should be included in the
questionnaire. Although, one must always keep in mind what the target variables
are and who the target group is so that the questions can be designed toward
that market. Additionally, the type of selected-response items used and how the
questions are phrased can provide telling information in an attitude survey. According
to Krosnick (1999), while it is desirable that participants “…optimize throughout
a questionnaire, this seems unrealistic”; thus it is advised that the designer
switch tactics and keep the questionnaire interesting and satisficing (p. 547).
This survey is designed with several of those satisficing formats;
a Graphic Rating Scale is used to allow the respondent to subjectively respond
to questions on a sliding scale. True-False questions are provided as a way to
find out if the respondent has had past experiences, such as parental divorce,
causing negative attitudes or an outright “rejection [toward] the institution
of marriage” (Thornton & Freedman, 1982, p. 302). Whereas, the most popular
attitude measure is the Likert Format, giving fives degrees to which a
respondent can select. Although this
sample survey on has nine questions (with two additional mining questions), a
preliminary design issue one must work out is the length of the survey (Hogan,
2007). As indicated by Krosnick (1999), potential fatigue of respondents is
plausible with extremely long survey times, thus it is important to fine tune
the questions so that the survey will provide accurate information but be
sensitive to its length.
Survey Instructions
Administration
Because of the youthful demographics of this survey it is
desirable to allow this group to access the survey via social media (Facebook,
Twitter, etc.) and academic resources, thus administration staff is limited to
internet technicians (IT staff). However, to ensure reliability the survey
program must keep track of the sample sizes of previous studies with the
response rate of this survey; for according to Kitchenham and Pfleeger (2002),
“The validity of survey results is severely compromised if there is a
significant level of non-response” (p. 20).
Scoring
Score reports will be computer-generated, and while the
online resource may provide an extremely large sample group, it is possible to
break them into smaller groups through the use of the mining questions on the
survey (e.g., sex, education, etc.). Each question is provided a score value;
the grading scale from one to 10, true false one and two, and the Likert scale from
a negative two to postive two, with zero points scored for an answer that
neither agrees nor disagrees. It is important to keep in mind that some
questions have a reverse scoring aspect; meaning that answering on the low side
of the grading scale produces a high score, as an example.
Interpretation
From the existing survey it is possible to find out existing
beliefs on whether the participant feels or wants to get married or have
children and then decipher what variables affect that (religion, family history,
social life, lifestyle, etc.) based on the answers provided. The most
interpretative data may come from the differences between participants who have
family history and those who do not; as seen in Thornton and Freedman's (1982)
research.
Conclusion
The attached survey is proved as part of this essay which
describes the purpose of the Marriage and
Family Attitude Survey, design difficulties, and instructions on using such
a survey. The survey is designed to obtain the changing attitudes of young adults
on the relationship between marriage and family life. Hopefully, the findings
will enable researchers to continue making substantial shifts to the way people
view marriage, singleness, and family behaviors.
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