Week 4 - Survey Design

The key to good data is asking the right question. We discuss the different types of questions and variables that constitute a good questionnaire.

Figure 1: Photo by Evan Denis

Learning Objectives

This lecture consists of two parts, each of which have specific learning objectives.

Part 1

1. Learners are able understand the uses and limitations and uses for each type of survey question when it comes to answering (respondent) and analysis (researcher)
2. Learners can identify variables, units and methods of measurement for survey questions
3. Learners are able to create survey questions using a Likert scale, a continuous outcome, a binary outcome, a categorical outcome

Part 2

These learning objectives are related to the assignment for this week.

1. Learners can explain the difference between the markdown (.md) and R Markdown (.Rmd) file format
2. Learners can paraphrase how a file written in a markup language like markdown (.md) differs from a file written in a proprietary file format like .docx
3. Learners can identify four components of an R markdown file (YAML, code chunk, R code, markdown)

Slides

title	lecturer	part	slides
Survey Design	E. Tilley	Part 1	Access slides on Moodle
Literate Programming with R Markdown	L. Schöbitz	Part 2	Access slides in browser
Literate Programming with R Markdown	L. Schöbitz	Part 2	Access slides as PDF

Group work

The submission is part of Assignment 4. Each group person will:

1. Add the research questions that you and/or your group have worked on.
2. Write up the research design you are planning to use for your data collection.
3. Submit their sample population:

• Bins: (1) Number; (2) Location, (3) Frequency of sampling
• Human population, for example random, over 60, family, cyclist, etc.

4. Write up the variables that are needed, together with the respective questions and possible response values.

Papers

• Chapter 12: Bickman, L., Rog, D. J., & Hedrick, T. E. (2009). Applied research design: A practical approach. Handbook of Applied Social Research Methods. Sage: London.

Homework

id	title_link	type	category	effort_estimate_min	submission_format	due_date
1	Markdown Tutorial	tutorial	required	15	no submission
2	Week 4 - Literate Programming with R Markdown	assignment	required	45	GitHub	2022-03-22