Time is flying fast as Thanksgiving approaches. I have been puttering along with my research. I have found great preliminary data as to the demographics and religious distributions in Rockford, since that will be the population I will be studying. I have also been reading up on different religions and different survey questions, both of which provide essential insight when conducting this survey. Nest week, I need to research capital and consumable time and determine how best to retrieve this data from people. I also have to decide which religions I will be studying, and whether or not I want to do a stratified random sample or a convenience sample survey. If you or your friends would like to take part in this survey, please let me know!
This week was more reading into prior research that dealt with the relationships between religion and time allocation. The Finke article discussed how clergy spent their time, comparing how it changed over a generation. The 1975 article provided a great background as to how to create a survey. The Gruber article explores how the secularization of the world affects religious attendance. All these, and other articles, are helping to establish a foundation on which I can begin my research. I have a long way to go, and I know that conducting my survey will be difficult. Right now, I have to stay focused on the research at hand.
This week I began to play with potential survey questions. It’s nothing special to say the least, just some chicken scratch about what I want to study. I have been researching related information: how to write surveys, how to interpret them, good vs bad questions. I have also been doing some preliminary research on different religions. I need to decide, soon, which religions or groups of religions I will be studying. I have determined, after reading the 1975 article, that I should study both Eastern and Western religious groups simultaneously. Obviously, this survey will be confined to American participants, which may lead to culture being a confounding variable.
I need to research more on measuring—quantitatively—surveys, and the religions I will be studying. This will be a lot of work, and I have only begun my research into this topic. I have a lot of work to do the next few weeks. My goal is to compile at least a comprehensive rough draft of the survey by the end of the semester, so I can spend third quarter sharing and conducting the survey. |
Emma Laiis a college senior majoring in Economics (Math Emphasis), Psychology, and Religious Studies. Archives
September 2020
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