Questionnaire Exercise

Stony Brook administration has a special insurance policy for protecting students who use bikes on campus. It is not cheap, and the administration wants to ensure that the money is well-spent. For example, if fewer students use bicycles than in prior years, then the University should negotiate for a less expensive insurance policy. Your research firm has been approached by the University to do study of bicycle use on campus. Your task is to determine how many students use bicycles on campus, and why. The constraints:

1. There are no data from prior years on the number of bicycles on campus. It is impossible to go back in time and collect these data.

2. The administration needs to know the answers quickly. So, the study must be simple and easy to carry out.

3. The administration has three ideas they want to test about reasons students might be biking less than they used to.

For these reasons, your study must consist of a questionnaire that determines the relative importance of these factors in explaining current levels of biking among students. Research questions:

1. Your plan is to distribute a questionnaire across campus, as widely as possible. Your target sample size is 1,000 students. The incentive to participate is the chance to win a $100 gift card (there are 10 chances to win).

2. Your first objective is to estimate how many students ride bikes on campus and how often they ride their bikes

3. Your next objectives are to test three ideas about why bike-riding might be declining: a. Students are living farther off-campus and biking is not feasible. b. Students have other options for getting around besides bicycles. c. Biking is not seen as cool anymore.

Your goal: Design a survey instrument that will accomplish the goals of the research. Your study must be brief (to encourage participation and completion) and should not ask any purposeless questions. For this assignment: 1. Submit a questionnaire that consists of no more than 10 items: the outcome variables (objective 1), measured as best as you see fit enough items to test each of the three predictors/reasons (objective 2).

2. This questionnaire must be constructed in Qualtrics, exported to Word, and uploaded into Blackboard as a Word document.

3. At least one predictor must be measured as a nominal variable.

4. Your study should include at least one 3-item (construct) interval scale. (hint: interval scales are used for attitudes). Rubric (13 points total): Did the student include a valid measure of frequency of bicycling on campus (outcome variables)? (2 points) Did the student include valid measures that can be used to test all three hypotheses/reasons? (1 point each, 3 points total) Are these measures error free? (1 point each, 5 points total) Is at least one predictor variable measured as a nominal variable? (1 point) Is at least one predictor variable measured as a 3-item scale (construct) (1 point) Did the student include necessary items such as introduction and thank you note? (1 point)