As a member of Group 22, the “Class Media Group,” I was given the task of tracking the procedures, progress, and findings of Group 24, “Survey Analysis Group” and 25, “Original Survey Group.” Group 24 is responsible for analyzing existing data from similar surveys conducted in the past, and Group 25 is in charge of writing the survey questions, identifying who to send the survey to, and packing the survey so it can be mailed to people in Newark, Trenton, New Brunswick, and Camden. I was asked to switch into this group from Group 23 on November 18, almost three weeks into the second half of the semester, so my blog posts are starring in the middle of the project.
Here is some background about what the groups have done so far:
Group 24 members have been communicating with preceptor Kevin Collins to understand what goes into their project, and how they are supposed to conduct a statistical data analysis of surveys that have been done in the past about topics like food deserts. Sophomore Jacob Oppenheimer told me, “I think we’re all still pretty confused at this point…we’re trying to figure out what is going on what we are supposed to be doing.” Group 24 plans to do most of their work individually, and will not be meeting much in the following weeks.
Group 25, which originally started off as Groups 13-16, was condensed after Dr. Freeland at Princeton’s Survey Research Center informed them that it was a bit too ambitious for four groups to each try and create it’s own survey, gather the data by phone, and analyze the results. Junior Ben Adams was “shocked” when Dr. Freeland predicted that it would have taken each student eighty hours of work just to gather data. With guidance from Professor Harris-Lacewell the survey groups decided to switch to a mailed survey not a phone survey, and Groups 13-16 were changed into Groups 24 and 25.
Finally, Group 25 was broken down even further so that some people would be writing survey questions (25A), others would be choosing the survey frame (25B), and the remaining members would format the survey to be sent to locals in Newark, Trenton, New Brunswick, and Camden (25C). Freshman Elle Powell remarked, “I think we’ve broken down the overall task of writing a survey into much more manageable pieces; I’m excited to get to work in a smaller group.” Next week Group 25 will meet with their subgroups because the deadline for the survey to be finished is fast approaching!
