Meghan+Lobsinger+Draft

Research Proposal Outline-

Work in progress:



What is internal and external validity?

Meghan Lobsinger's Chimney Swift PowerPoint Presentation Survey Question Draft Page (now that's a mouthful)-

What is the purpose of this survey?

Pre-presentation survey:
 * To find out who is attending these presentations and why
 * To get a feel for how much chimney swift knowledge respondents have before hearing the presentation
 * This may include things such as, do they know what a chimney swift is? do they know that chimney swifts are experiencing a decline in population? do they know that this decline may be linked to chimney-capping rates, etc?
 * To find out how conservationally-minded respondents are before hearing the presentation
 * Before even hearing the presentation, are respondents will to go home and uncap their chimney (or leave them uncapped)?
 * To start collecting data-collection locations (homes with chimneys made of brick or stone)
 * This also gives some statistics for what percentage of presentation-goers have homes that have potential breeding chimneys in the area
 * Also gives an idea of how many homeowners know the status of their chimneys and if they know why their chimney is capped

Post-presentation survey:
 * To find out the amount of new chimney swift knowledge respondents feel they have gained from the presentation, if any
 * To find out, after the presentation has been given, how much more or less willing respondents are to uncap/leave uncapped for chimney swift use
 * And if they're not willing to uncap/leave uncapped, why
 * To collect some basic demographics
 * Presentation-goers' ages, gender, marital-status? Education, Income?
 * To collect comments, questions, suggestions from presentation-goers either about chimney swifts, the presentation itself, or the survey/study

Things I'm having a hard time with:
 * What questions actually answer my study questions and which ones are just interesting to have and/or useful to future chimney swift studies?
 * Does that matter? Should I just go ahead and include them all?
 * Pre-presentation survey has gotten quite long with the addition of the demographics, but this may be a necessary evil...
 * Is the income question necessary with all the rest of the demographics? How much of a problem is that question for IRB?

As of 15 April: