Potential Paper topic: Let's imagine for a moment that you are a Business major and you are specifically curious about how your generation (the Millennials) will impact the work industry you will eventually become a part of after graduation. You have heard both positives and negatives regarding this generation and you plan to create your own hypothesis and then test this hypothesis with a survey.
Step 1: Create a theoretical question that will guide your survey (similar to what you did for creating interview questions).
Example: Does the Millennial generation positively impact our current workforce by adding creativity, tech suaveness, and an interest in philanthropy? Or, do Millennials create friction in the workforce by challenging authority figures, expecting higher pay, and relying too heavily on technology?
Step 2: To write an effective survey, work backwards, beginning with figuring out what information you hope to learn from your survey. Think about:
- What do you expect to learn?
To figure out the positive impact Millennials might have on the work force you might consider asking current Millennial students at DU what goals they are seeking from employment. Are they more interested in a challenging job? Are they looking for a job that creates a positive social impact? Do they plan to use technology in the work force and are they comfortable with this technology?
To gain an understanding of possible negative impact you might ask whether these students might present an unwelcome challenge to older generations. How will Millennials negotiate the disconnect between their own technical skills and their boss or co-workers skills? What will they do if their boss is not interested in creating large scale changes? What will they do if their educational degree does not yield the income they deserve?
Or, to gain insight into how Millennials might contribute to their work environment you might also interview parents of this generation. Parents could provide insight into this generation's unique contributions as well as possible shortcomings.
Step 3: Create Data Sets to help you formulate your actual survey questions. Doing so will help prepare you to create basic topics areas your survey will need to cover.This is much like writing the main headings for an outline. If these topics are very broad or vague, break them in subtopics/sub headers or rephrase them.
Example Data Sets:
Technology
Authority
Creativity
Philanthropy
Entitlement
Change
Writing Questions-Close-Ended
Decide what kind of rating scale you want to use. (Number scales are called Likert scales, named after an educator and organizational psychologist.) For example, you may want to ask about "level of satisfaction" (where 5 equals extremely satisfied and 1 is dissatisfied), "level of agreement" (5 = strongly agree, 1 = strongly disagree), or another label that may fit your topic. You can also use a 1-4 scale if you want to force your participants to take a stand and not have a neutral ("3") position. *Try to limit your close-ended questions to a total of 15-20.
Step 4: Please create at least 4-6 close ended questions using the data sets you created above. You don't have to limit these questions to one data set like the example below.
Example using one data set:
When surveying students with the data set of Technology: On a scale of 1-5, where 5 is "very important" and 1 is "not important," please indicate your answers on the following questions:
How important is using technology (cell phone, computer, TV., etc...) in your daily life?
How important is using technology in your classroom?
How important is using technology in your future work place?
How important is your boss's or co-workers ability to use technology in the work place?
Warning: Be careful of creating overly complex or overly vague sentences. Also be on the lookout for any questions that "give" the answer to the participant or make him feel she/he "should" respond in one way ("The flag should be flown at all schools"), and questions that ask about more than one thing (if you have an "and" or an "or" in your question, you probably have this problem.
Example question that won't work: How important is technology in your daily life and in the work place?
Step 5: Please create 2-3 open-ended questions you might use in your survey.
Qualitative (Open-Ended Questions)
The ideas from above apply here as well, with some writing differences.
1. Be careful your questions will invite enough response. Do not write questions that will elicit a "yes" or "no" answer.
2. Also, don't be too broad in your questions.
3. Don't include too many open-ended. These can be your most important data, but participants will only answer a few of them. Aim for no more than three or four well worded questions.
Some possible questions to ask students
1. Please explain what your top three goals for your future job includes and why.
2. What do you believe are the most positive contributions your generation will give to future employers?
3. Do you believe your generation (Millennials) will have any conflicts with older generations (such as Baby Boomers) in the work force? Please explain.