As like most Architecture students, I haven't written a questionnaire or survey, I have drawn up a series of guidelines with the help of:
Wilson, Noel and McClean, Sally. Questionnaire Design: A Practical Introduction: University of Ulster. 1994
The first point the book indicated was to identify my concept or main area of investigation. As the survey needs to be concise and purposeful, I need to make sure I focus on the purpose of the questionnaire.
What are the purpose and effects of using architectural precedents within a students education?
I aim to explore when and how often precedents are used in studio projects. As a background, during design projects, students are often asked to research existing projects of a similar function, site, materiality etc. This is very much the norm within architecture education. However what i intend to discover is whether students actually copy information from a project directly into their own. And if so is this actually accepted as being legal within the University system. First year students can not be expected to walk into the building and be able to design without copying something they have previously seen. Can they?
Initially I wanted to question both architecture student and non architecture professionals. However i think this will be difficult especially within one survey as I am limited to 10 questions. Also keeping the survey simple and concise will hopefully result in clearer and more useful data when I come to analyse it later.
Questionnaire Structure:
- A short sequence of factual questions:
For example the age of the participant and their current year of study or year of graduation. In this section i will also include the question:
Do you believe you have ever committed architectural plagiarism? Yes or No?
I will then repeat this question at the end of the survey.
- The second section includes a series of multiply choice questions:
These questions are simple with answer and can quickly produce the relevant information. Likely questions will include the benefits of using precedents and how often the participant uses them. I will use a range of question types including:
- numerical
- numerous selections
- Rank order
- Likert Style (scale varying between strongly disagree to strongly agree)
The range of questions should keep the participant interested in the questionnaire without losing focus.
- The last section will feature 2 or 3 questions which allow a written answer. This gives a more flexible response allowing the participant to express their views and opinion. However, if any, these could be the questions participants are likely to leave out, but are likely to be the most useful. Therefore it is important I ask the question in a way that sparks a reaction and response.
At the end of the survey I will thank the participant for their time as well asking them to provide me with their email address. This will allow me to personally thank them for completing the questionnaire as well as being able to provide them with links to my Twitter and blog accounts.
I will use an online questionnaire tool to compose my survey, this provides a secure site for the survey to be conducted. It also provides a tool to collate and analyse my data. I aim to survey a total of 30 people, I believe this to be very realistic, and any additional participants will be a bonus.
Before launching the questionnaire, I need to conduct a pilot test with a minimum of 3 participants, this is to ensure:
- Every question is understood
- The survey isn't too lengthy and is stimulating
- All the web links work
- Useful answers to my research are obtained
- Participants understand the instructions on how to fill the survey in.
The final difficulty I may face is getting people to complete the survey. By methods of promotion will include:
- Displaying the poster (above) around the School of Architecture (pending approval) This will make students familiar with my project before I send them the link to the survey
- Following this an email will be distributed to all architecture students featuring a brief introduction and a link to the questionnaire
- Facebook will be used to promote the survey
- Twitter will be used to promote the survey. I will also direct message any relevant current followers with a link to the survey.
- Personal emails to past colleagues and friends
- The Borrow, Amend, Steal? Blog will also display a link.
Fingers Crossed it Works!
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