Week 8 - Survey Dilemma

This week my "thesis goal" was to complete a draft of the survey I will send out to students at UW and to complete section A of my ORE proposal. Well, the survey is... close to done, and I've drafted section A, so I just need to spend a bit more time (today, ideally) editing everything up. Which doesn't sound like much to do, but this week, everything--even the little stuff--has felt like a huge task that I have to force myself to accomplish instead of (a) sleeping or (b) panicking. Is is because of the time change last weekend that I'm just feeling totally thrown off lately?!

This, in its own coincidental way, speaks to the whole issue of student mental health. How am I supposed to be productive if I'm struggling to stay well? Which is why my thesis is so important, and why I'm passionate about it, and why I need to slug through all the less-fun tasks so that I can really try make a difference for students on campus.

Alternatively (or in addition to my mental wellness woes), it could also be the amazing weather we had over the past couple of days distracting me. T-shirt weather in November in Canada is pretty, well, un-Canadian.

One of the big decisions I have to make over the next few weeks is whether I'm going to distribute my survey electronically or using physical copies provided to classes. I honestly keep flip-flopping between the two, one moment totally convinced for the former, the next thinking the latter is best, then back again. I should really consider the pros and cons of each! Pros of electronic surveys are (1) all the data is already electronically coded upon completion, (2) I'll save money on printing (plus the trees!), (3) I don't have to approach classes, and (4) participants can respond on their own time. Pros of physical copies are (1) I'll get a lot of data all at once, (2) I'll very likely get a larger sample, and (3) I can do my best to get a diverse sample (among faculties, years, etc.). A major con of physical copies is that, with tons of data comes the task of entering all that data into the statistics software. Which is a tedious task for anyone, but I actually have wrist and finger issues that make it tricky to do a lot of typing. I'd be pretty nervous about that. I wonder if I could just hire someone to do it... I think I heard about an app for that kind of thing, actually. I'll have to look into it.

A big con of electronic surveys is figuring out how to distribute it effectively so I'll get enough respondents for statistically meaningful results. I should really ask Katie how students have done e-surveys in the past.