Yudu - Connect Volume24 Issue 5 May-June 2011DRM

ELIZABETH’S RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1. What is demography? 2. What is it about population that interests demographers? 3. What is your survey designed to do?

4. What are the sizes of your samples: 4A. Of students?

5A. Number of males? 5B. Number of females?

4B. Of teachers?

5. For each of your samples, tell the following: For students:

For teachers:

5C. Number of males? 5D. Number of females?

6. On the average, how many sisters do students have? 7. On the average, how many brothers do students have? 8. On the average, how old are students’ sisters? 9. On the average, how old are students’ brothers?

10. On the average, are sisters older or younger than the students surveyed? By how much? 11. On the average, are brothers older or younger than the students surveyed? By how much? 12. On the average, are brothers older or younger than sisters? 13. How many students were born in Eugene? 14. How many students migrated to Eugene? 15. How many students’ mothers were born in Eugene? 16. How many students’ fathers were born in Eugene? 17. On the average, how old are fathers? 18. On the average, how old are mothers? 19. On the average, are fathers older or younger than mothers? By how much? 20. How many fathers are migrants? 21. How many mothers are migrants? 22. Are fathers more or less migrant than mothers? 23. What conclusions can you draw from your survey?

Table 1

embarking on a similar project would perhaps need some library resources to tease out some of the answers and their usefulness. Good sources are:

The Population Reference Bureau’s Population Handbook: A Quick Guide to Population Dynamics for Journalists, Policymakers, Teachers, Students, and Other People Interested in People, by Arthur Haupt and Thomas T. Kane. Population Reference Bureau, Inc. 1978.

“U.S. Population: Where We Are; Where We’re Going,” Population Bulletin, Vol 37, No 2. Population Reference Bureau Staff and Experts. Population Reference Board, 1982.

These sources may also be used to derive additional discussion questions from the results of the survey.

Survey Taking The actual survey schedule (Table 2) was developed with the research questions in mind. Prior to actually conducting the research, Elizabeth had to get the approval of her school’s Human Subjects Committee, consisting of parents and teachers. She defended the proposal by show- ing an understanding of the material, responsibility, and serious regard for confidentiality of the information being given to her.