This week I completed my first semester research paper. It made me question why I was conducting this study, and why I want to continue this research. Ultimately, it is belief. The ultimate question I am trying to answer: what does it mean to believe?
The study I plan to conduct is an attempt to see the correlation between behavior and spirituality. Belief in an abstract being can impact how we spend our time, productively or unproductively. Something I found while conducting my research was the data from GSS, the General Social Survey, that could potentially provide the data I need. However, the means of attaining such data (let alone read it) are high, in that it costs a hefty $1170 for a software that can read the data. Next semsester, I am excited to get started on my survey, learning how to quantify my data, and distributing the survey throughout the community. Although the sources of errors are great, I believe this project can give me good experience and survey collection and serve as a beginning into my research on religion and economics.
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This week, I continued my research into religion. I have narrowed down which religions I will focus on in my survey to those readily available in the Rockford area. As a high school student, I am fairly limited in what I can realistically research over the next few weeks, but I hope that I can effectively study within my limits. It will be difficult, and I have yet to produce the first semester research paper, but it should be a fun process and exposure to research.
This being said, I will be looking at the following religions:
As for time allocation, I have three categories. All activities MUST add to 24 hours. The survey is still only a draft, but I should like to distribute them to the community by the end of January. Hope everyone had a wonderful break! I have been researching more about religion in surveys. I found a wonderful article that suggests new ways to measure religiosity without the Christian bias that I may have. One major obstacle I am facing is finding the differences between Christian and non-Christian religions. Because I live in a culture of Western, Christian beliefs, I cannot ask unbiased questions that cover the majority of religions. As a result, I have decided only to cover the major religious groups: Christian, Catholic, Russian Orthodox, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindi, Earth-Centered Believers (Pagans), Agnostic, and Atheist. This will be a challenge because of the bias, but due to my limited sample size in the US, it should not be as large a factor as it would be if I were studying religion in an Eastern country.
I look forward to planning my project and combining it into a research project in the coming weeks. It will be a lot of work, but it should turn out wonderfully. |
Emma Laiis a college senior majoring in Economics (Math Emphasis), Psychology, and Religious Studies. Archives
September 2020
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