Team 2, Group 2Anna Yang

November 13, 2006Carin Chu

Chris Lam

Janet Lee

Statistics 152: Questionnaire

Purpose:

The purpose of this survey is to find out how much time upperclassmen majoring in Engineering and Arts & Humanities, exercise in a week. To obtain such data, we need to design a questionnaire that will provide us with this information. Thus, we will ask our target population three main types of questions: general questions, auxiliary variable questions, and personal preference questions.

General Questions:

General questions are exactly what we want to find out aboutour target population, such as the major and year of the students and the amount of time they spend on exercising per week. We begin the survey with a question on whether or not they have taken this survey before. It is important for us to know the answer to this question so that we can avoid duplicate responses when we are performing data analysis.

In order for us to include only undergraduate upperclassmen focusing in the areas of engineering and arts & humanities, we ask our target population to state their year in school and name their major(s), if declared. Moreover, by asking them how much time they spend on exercising per week, we get to observe the relationship between major and exercise amount.

A more in-depth discussion involves:

  • major of our target population. Since many of the Berkeley students have more than one major (sometimes they double or even triple), we want to take this into consideration when doing data analysis. Thus, we ask that they write down the name of their major(s) in the appropriate box(es), categorized by Arts & Humanities, Engineering, and Others, so that we can easily determine what their majors are and how many majors they have. For those who are double majoring in Arts & Humanities and Engineering, we have decided to exclude them from our analysis because of the difficulty to categorize them. Not only do we leave out this group, but we also exclude those students whose major is neither Arts & Humanities nor Engineering. One more thing, the reason that we ask the students for their intended major(s), if they have not yet declared, is that many of the arts & humanities upperclassmen have already made up their minds to go with this major, yet they have not officially “declared” with the department. Since engineering students start off their college career being declared, they don’t normally have the problem of having a declared major.
  • time spent on exercising per week. Because we want to get the most accurate and reliable information on how much time the students spend exercising per week, we have decided to have them answer this question based on their exercise last week. If we had asked them the amount of time they exercise per week, the students are more likely to report an answer that is not as accurate and reliable as we would like them to. This is due to the fact that they might not remember or might just be too lazy to calculate the average in their heads. Therefore, we have decided to ask them the number of hours spent exercising last week, but follow it up with another question asking whether the amount they stated is less than, equal to, or greater than the amount that they usually spend per week. This way, we get to see whether the amount they reported is a good representation of their normal exercising schedule.

Auxiliary Variable Questions:

Auxiliary variable questions can help us determine whether some factors, such as gender, age, workload, and non-academic obligations, will possibly affect the amount of exercise that students get weekly. We will take these variables into consideration when we analyze the relationship between major in school and amount of exercise for our target population.

The auxiliary variables are further discussed:

  • gender – the role of gender plays an important part in our analysis. It is stereotypical to say that males tend to do more exercise than females. Since Engineering is dominated by men, we want to see whether this factor will be influential enough to offset the major variable of our population.
  • age – how old the students are can greatly determine whether they have the time to exercise. Students, who are older than the regular 17~23 age group, might possibly have other obligations, such as family and kids thatthey need to attend to.
  • workload – the number of units and the fact that students havea minor (or even double- or triple-majors, as previously mentioned) will all contribute to the amount of workload. So, other than simply comparing the amount of exercise done by students in engineering and arts & humanities, we can determine whether or not extra workload will decrease the amount of time the students spend on exercising.
  • type of exercise – whether it is anaerobic or aerobic, the type of exercise can be a critical factor that determines the number of hours spent on exercising per week. Anaerobic activities (i.e. yoga, Pilates, weightlifting, resistance training) tend to be more for relieving stress or for improving appearances, whereas aerobic activities (i.e. basketball, volleyball, tennis, soccer) tend to be more for pleasure or for getting together with friends. So, depending on what they hope to get out of exercising, students can choose the amount of time they wish to spend. Not only is the number of hours controlled by the students themselves, but it can also be determined by other people, such as their friends. This is the case for many of the aerobic exercises, since they are generally team-oriented.
  • convenience & accessibility – the location of a sports facility (whether it be a gym, a tennis court, or a soccer field) is very crucial in determining the amount of time spent on exercising. If one lives close to a tennis court, he/she would be more likely to go play tennis than someone else who lives much farther away. In addition, if one has access to a gym because of membership, he/she would be more willing to go exercise so that the money paid for the membership would not go to waste.
  • non-academic obligations – for those students who are heavily involved in work, volunteer, or clubs (hold leadership positions), the amount of time they have to exercise would normally be reduced. Therefore, obligations outside of school can greatly affect how much free time the students have.
  • school sports – participation in school sports (i.e. CAL athletes, Intramural teams, and sports clubs) would require the students to exercise and practice more due to competition purposes. Thus, involvement in school sports can definitely increase the amount of time spent on exercising per week.

Personal Preference Questions:

Personal preference questions are asked so that we can learn about the students’ opinion toward exercising and how their preferences made them answer the way they did.

By asking our target population:

  • If you had more time, would you have exercised?

This question is asking whether there are any existing auxiliary variables that might be preventing them from getting the amount of exercise they want. It can also indicate where on the list a student ranks the need to exercise. For engineering students, it is possible that if they had more time, they would prefer to play computer games.

  • How many hours of exercise do you think you should do per week?

By asking them this question, we get to see where the students in our target population set their health standards. For those who believe that they don’t need a lot of exercises, they will be less likely to exercise because they don’t see the need to. On the other hand, for those who value exercising, they tend to spend more time at the gym.

  • Do you think you are exercising enough?

This question tells us whether the students are satisfied with the amount of exercise they are getting. Also, it reveals whether there exist any auxiliary variables that might be preventing them from their desired amount of exercise.

  • Do you enjoy exercising?

This question allows us to analyze the mind set of these students. If someone hates exercising, then he/she would not have exercised even if he/she has the time. On the contrary, someone who loves to exercise would find the time even if he/she is busy.

Changes:

We have made the following changes in the questionnaire:

  • Changed Table for Students to Fill in Their Majors in Question# 5

Originally, we made a three by three table with row names- “One Major”, “Double Majors”, and “More than Two Majors”-and column names- “Arts & Humanities”, “Engineering”, and “Others.” However, we later found that it was quite pointless to make so many rows. Therefore, in order to keep the questionnaire short and neat, we deleted two rows and renamedthe remaining row as “Major(s),” so that students could simply write down all their majors in the three appropriate boxes.

  • Changed the Amount of Time for Exercising Per Week to the Amount of Time for Exercising Last Week in Question #7

Originally, the question asked the students the number of hours they exerciseper week. Some of our classmates suggested that this istoo difficultto answer becauseeither the amount of time spent exercisingchanges fromweek to week or the students themselves may forget the exact amount of time they exercise each week. In order to obtain a more accurate and reliable answer, we changed to question to “the number of hours they exercisedlast week.”

  • Marked the Second Part of Question #7 as Question #8

Originally, #7 and #8 were one question. After we did a guinea pig test on our STAT 152 classmates, someone pointed out that # 7, which required the students to answer a few things, was too long, and some parts may be easily overlooked. Thus, we separated #7 into two parts and marked the second part as #8.

  • Added Questions #9,#10,and #11

Our Team Leader, who is also the leader of Data Analysis (Group 4),suggested us to add #9, #10, and #11 in the questionnaire. He said that these extra questions will behelpful to his group when they perform data analysis, because they can take into consideration how the students,majoring in Art & Humanities versus Engineering, think about the amount of time for exercising.

  • Divided Exercises into Anaerobic Type and Aerobic Type in Question #12

Instead of making a table, listing the number of hours spent exercising and the type of exercises that the students do, we categorized all the different exercises into two main groups: anaerobic and aerobic. This way, we would not make our questionnaire too long and confusing.