how could we design a sociological method to study a phenomenon ?!

Spring 2009

This project is designed to help the president of the American University in Cairo studying the AUC graduate students after leaving AUC. He would like to study how their attitudes and feelings could be changed after they graduate from AUC. Also, another important point to be investigated is whether their attitudes have been changed or not. In addition, he is interested in discovering if their study in AUC has any influence whether negative or positive over their lives.
The task of this project is to provide the AUC president with the methods and ways to help answering those questions about AUC graduates. As the president chose to use survey to study the attitudes of AUC graduates, our mission is to give an advice about what is the best survey design. The designs suggested by the president’s advisors are panel study, retrospective histories collected from a sample of older AUC graduates or what is called ‘content analysis’ and One-Short Cross Sectional study. There would be an explanation of each and then will decide which method is suitable for this project.
Various designs can serve the purpose of conducting a survey to identify the changes of attitudes among people. The first survey design was suggested by the president’s advisors is panel study. Panel study is one of the survey designs which is based on choosing one specific group of respondents and collect data from the same group over time. For example, if we decide to measure how people change their opinion about an issue such as abortion, we would collect data from a group of people like the students of AUC and then ask them again about the same issue after a period of time. The only difference of the panel study to other survey designs is to examine the same issue on the same group tested before. This can help us classifying the changing of opinion or attitudes of the same group of people such as the AUC seniors’ students.
Every survey design has its own advantages and disadvantages. Regarding the advantages, one advantage of the panel study is that the researchers can identify the changing of behaviors, opinions, attitudes of specific group of people. For example, if we would like to measure whether some AUC students change their opinion about the new move to the Cairo new campus or not, we would question the students of Science School for example; then after two semesters we should re-question the Science School students again to test if their opinion change or not. Some students might stick to their opinion about the move to the new campus in New Cairo while others might change their opinion and feel satisfied after having two semesters. This means the situation is getting better in the new campus and as a result students are changing their opinion.
Talking about the disadvantages of panel study, mainly there are three disadvantages; the first disadvantage is something called panel attrition which means that some respondents refuse to be questioned in the second time. Sometimes, some students might be busy and reject to respond to the questions of the survey; this might be a problem to the researchers who use panel study. For example, some students who were interviewed might transfer to another university and no one can contact them; in this case, the study is useless and meaningless as the same group should be re-interviewed to recognize the changes in the opinion of AUC students about the Cairo new campus move. The second disadvantage of panel study is that the data collected from the panel study is hard to be analyzed. The third and final disadvantage is that panel study is expensive and time consuming; this is because panel study does not depend on some published data as other methods but there should be new data every time researchers interview the same group of people. This might be another problem of panel study.
Those disadvantages mentioned above might be a reason for why panel study is not common used in conducting a survey. Some might argue that panel study is mostly like doing an experiment which the researchers would have a control group and experiment group to compare between. The control group would be the first group and experiment group would be interviewing the same group for the second time. Consequently, panel study is rarely used or would be used in special cases. Regarding any biases, any survey method can be biased in its language so the wording and how to phrase the questions in the questionnaire is important to not be biased. In the same point, pretesting would be the solution to avoid any biases.
The second suggested method to be used in our project is content analysis. Content analysis is mainly based on analyzing date already existed such as papers done years ago about the same topic, government documents and others. In this case, it’s easier to study one topic as the data is available and the researchers do not have to collect the data by themselves.
Content analysis like other survey methods has advantages and disadvantages. One advantage of content analysis is that it provides an organized analysis of materials which make it easier for researcher in their research. Also, content analysis can prevent any biases researchers might create before they conduct their research. For example, in the case of the president and his interest in studying the attitudes of the AUC graduates students towards the educational system of AUC, he might have an idea that all AUC students are satisfied with the AUC educational system. However, the data collected and researchers conducted before might show that some AUC students are not totally satisfied with the educational system. Accordingly, this can give the president a general idea about the truth and change the bias that the president has before conducting the survey using content analysis. On the other hand, content analysis has drawbacks; one of them is that the documents available might be not enough for the research I would like to conduct. For example, the same example of AUC students’ attitudes towards AUC educational system can be applied to this problem as there might not be enough documents that discuss this issue. As a result, this method might not be helpful to the AUC president’s study. The second disadvantage of content analysis is that sometimes the documents might have some comments that are contradicted which researchers can not depend on them.
The third survey method is Random Cross-Sectional. Cross-Sectional Survey is about collecting data at specific time from a specific group to examine or describe larger population. It is like having a representative group of a larger population. It is not just to describe this sample and group of people but to study a relationship between variables. The advantage of cross sectional survey is that it focuses on one specific group and then can be applied to larger population. However, this can be also disadvantage at the same time because researchers might be biased and generalize in their results to the larger population which is not necessary can be applied to larger population. In addition, the opinions of any specific sample collected at one point might be changed later; this is another disadvantage of Cross-Sectional Survey. In the case of the president, he should interview a sample random group of AUC graduates to ask them whether their study in the AUC has any influence on their lives after they graduate. I think this is possible as he can email those who graduated from AUC and question them some questions to determine whether the study in AUC affected them or not. As the AUC has the contact details of graduates, he can use this as a tool to contact them via email or telephone or interview if possible.
After discussing the survey methods and the advantages and disadvantages of each, we should now choose which method is the most appropriate for the AUC president’s project. In my opinion, each survey method has its own strength to be used and weakness to avoid. First, I think panel study is hard to use in the president’s purpose of studying the AUC students after they graduate as it is hard to re-interview the graduate students again as mentioned before they might refuse to respond in the second time due to private reasons. Secondly, about the content analysis, it is also hard to study students’ opinions based on published documents as the president needs to study the opinion of the students not just descriptive study. I think although it has disadvantages, Cross-Sectional survey is the most suitable one to the president’s project as it allows him to interview random students and know their opinion about studying in the AUC. This will prevent personal biases as it is random.
Most of the topics the AUC president would like to study about the graduate students are sensitive. For example, one topic that I think is sensitive is smoking among AUC students and the new policy in the Cairo AUC new campus. The new policy is that students are not allowed to smoke in public and building reigns. As the new AUC campus is open so the regions are open so they are not allowed to smoke in the majority of the buildings. I think many would not like to answer as they think it is a personal thing and a freedom of expression. Wording the questions is very important in this case as to make students respond. I was requested to suggest some ways to avoid some of the problems the president might face conducting his survey. One of the ways is not to be biased in asking the questions or imposing any answer on respondents. For example, if he would like to know the opinion of the students about smoking and whether the AUC policy of not permitting the smoking in closed areas have any influence on their lives after they graduate or not. First of all, he should introduce to the respondents the topic and give instructions. Secondly, he should start asking them general questions to provide some information about the person interviewed such as gender, age, social status, occupation and other stuff. Then, the president can ask some specific questions about the issue. The most important thing to take in consideration is how to ask the question and the wording. I will include a sample of the survey that can help the AUC president conducting his survey on AUC graduate students.





The sample of questionnaire the AUC president can use to conduct his survey
Instructions: The president of the American University in Cairo would like to study the attitudes of AUC graduate students towards some issues. The topic that the president would like to examine is the attitude of AUC students towards sexual harassment.
1. We changed it to what’s your sex?
a) Female
b) Male

2. What is your nationality?
a) Egyptian
b) Foreigner, please specify_______

3. What is your Social status?
a) Single
b) In a relationship
c) Engaged
d) Married
e) Other,______

4. Researches conducted have shown that the phenomenon of sexual harassment has increased in Egypt nowadays. To what extent you support these statistics?
a) Strongly agree
b) Agree
c) Disagree
d) Strongly disagree
e) Do not know

5. When you hear an accident of sexual harassment in Cairo, what can describe your feeling at that time? Please check all that apply.
a) Sad
b) Disappointed
c) Happy
d) Neutral
e) Angry
f) Dissatisfied
g) Others

6. This scale consists of a number of words that describe different feelings and emotions. Please read each item and then circle a number 0, 1, 2, 3 or 4 to indicate the extent to which you have this feeling at the time of knowing that there is an accident of sexual harassment in the new campus.
0=very slightly or not at all
1=A little
2=Moderately
3=Quite a bit
4=Extremely

1 Interested 0 1 2 3 4
2 Distressed 0 1 2 3 4
3 Excited 0 1 2 3 4
4 Upset 0 1 2 3 4
5 Strong 0 1 2 3 4
6 Guilty 0 1 2 3 4
7 Scared 0 1 2 3 4
8 Hostile 0 1 2 3 4
9 Enthusiastic 0 1 2 3 4
10 Proud 0 1 2 3 4
11 Irritable 0 1 2 3 4
12 Alert 0 1 2 3 4
13 Ashamed 0 1 2 3 4
14 Inspired 0 1 2 3 4
15 Nervous 0 1 2 3 4
16 Determined 0 1 2 3 4
17 Attentive 0 1 2 3 4
18 Jittery 0 1 2 3 4
19 Active 0 1 2 3 4
20 Afraid 0 1 2 3 4

7. Some AUC students reported that there are cases of sexual harassment in the AUC new campus. Are you aware of this phenomenon?
a) Fully aware
b) Aware
c) Don’t know
d) Don’t care
e) Unaware

8. Some students are asking for strict security service in the new AUC campus as to prevent the sexual harassment incidents. Do you support such demand?
a) Strongly agree
b) Agree
c) May be
d) Disagree
e) Strongly disagree

9. Have you ever been sexually harassed before?
a) Yes
b) No
c) Prefer not to answer

10. Some students just feel free and secured in the new AUC campus unlike others. In one word, describe your feeling towards the security services in the new AUC campus.