Planning Your Survey
In this lab, you will design a more sophisticated research investigation on a topic that interests you, and you will create tools to gather data and analyze the results.
In this activity, you will choose a research question and design and set up your survey.
Designing a Research Plan
In Lab 3: Dealing with Data, you used a survey to collect data about one question (such as favorite ice cream flavor, music genre, fruit, sport, pizza topping, etc.) and created a pictograph of the results. You've learned a lot since then. Now, you can create a survey with multiple questions and use Snap! to process the results.
For privacy, don't design a research plan that requires asking for personal information such as name, address, phone number, birthday, etc.
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Choose a topic of investigation, and design two or more survey questions to research your topic. Your survey should take numbers as responses to at least one question.
Example Investigation Topic: Do people stick with some sports longer than other sports?
- Possible Survey Questions:
- What sport do you practice most?
- How many years have you been practicing that sport?
Example Investigation Topic: Do people who have practiced music longer listen to more music?
- Possible Survey Questions:
- How many years have you been playing music?
- How many hours do you listen to music each day?
Designing a Data Processing Strategy
In upcoming activities, you will learn about and create tools that allow Snap! to:
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Process only data matching a certain condition (such as if a response equals a certain value or is greater than or less than some value)
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Find the length of a list, the sum or average of a list's values, or the maximum or minimum value in a list:
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Come up with an overall strategy for using those Snap! blocks to investigate your question.
If you realize your survey questions can't be researched using those blocks, you should redesign your survey before you go on.
Click for example strategies for investigating a question.
Example Investigation Topic: Do people stick with some sports longer than other sports?
- Possible data processing strategy: Make Snap! process the data for each sport played one at a time and find the average years spent playing each one.
Example Investigation Topic: Do people who have practiced music longer listen to more music?
- Possible data processing strategy: Make Snap! identify the maximum, minimum, and average number of years spent playing music, use that to choose a cutoff value (such as three years of playing music), and then have Snap! find the average hours spent listening for people who have played more than or less than that cutoff value and compare.
Discuss your investigation topic, survey questions, and data processing strategy. Offer feedback on the plan you hear, and adjust your own plan based on any feedback that seems useful.
In this activity, you designed a research plan to investigate a topic using two or more survey questions.