Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

In my original plan, I wanted to determine if fear has become an "epidemic" in our society. However, I soon realized that it would be nearly impossible to "measure" one's fear. After talking with an epidemiologist, he suggested that I express fear in terms of one's perception of the Avian Flu.

I have come up with a research plan in which I randomly select 30 students and 30 faculty members to complete a survey on their perception of the Avian Flu. (I am using two different age groups to see if there is any significant difference between perceptions.) The survey I have so far is:

1. I am a Broadneck High School (student, faculty member)
2. Before receiving this questionnaire, had you heard of Avian Influenza (Bird Flu)?
If yes,
3. On the following scale, please rate what you think your risk is of being exposed to the Bird Flu in the next year.
Highly Unlikely / Unlikely / No idea / Likely / Highly Likely
4. If you were to be exposed to the Bird Flu, what effect would you expect to occur?
No effect / Mild Illness (symptoms similar to those of common cold) /
Serious Illness (hospitalization required) / Death

Therefore, given the exremely low risk of human contraction of Bird Flu, I can use the data obtained to determine the accuracy of one's perception. I may also change the project to have the subjects complete the survey, and then retake the survey after receiving either a media coverage clip (biased) or informational article (factual).

My question is this: Is my survey sufficient to obtain the information that I am testing for, and if not, how can i change the wording/what other questions can I ask to make my survey more valid?

Thanks!

Hi!

I liked this survey, but there is only one problem with it. I think you should survey about a more dangerous and older disease. I know that at my school, only a few people would know what the disease was. However, if you give them the biased or factual piece of writing first, then I think it will be okay.

Hope this helps! Have fun!!!

Hi Kelly,

I think you've come up with a really interesting idea. I definitely agree that measuring "fear" would be really difficult. But in terms of measuring perception, I think your idea of testing Bird Flu is really interesting. However, instead of just testing 30 students and 30 faculty randomly, I think you should keep administering the survey until you have 30 students and 30 faculty that can all answer "yes" to the first question. This may be what you meant to write, but I was a little unclear and thought it wouldn't hurt to clarify. In other words, you could ask 30 students, and only 1 of them may have heard of bird flu. That would be difficult to compare to your faculty responses. Instead, you may need to administer the survey to 50 students to find 30 who have heard of bird flu (for example). I also think it's important to make sure that the survey is anonymous.

Just to make sure we're all on the same page, you've gotten SRC approval and filled out the informed consent forms, correct? Any experiments involving human subjects will require these forms to be filled out. Here's a link to a website in case you're not familiar with it. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/mentorin ... _src.shtml

I think your choice of bird flu is really great. It's something that is definitely misrepresented in the media. Another similar disease is West Nile virus. If you want to test the same hypothesis with a topic that is a little older, you may consider asking the same questions with regards to West Nile virus.

I've been thinking about your questions for a while, and I think they're well phrased. If I come up with any other comments, I'll be sure to post them.

Sincerely,
Linh

Hi Kelly,

I think you have a very interesting idea for a project here and I think the comments and suggestions you have received are good ones.

I am concerned that it will be difficult to analyze the results of your survey because it is really difficult to measure fear. How would you write up the results if most people answered, "no idea?" The problem with doing a survey of humans is that it is difficult to get clear-cut results. So you might consider adding a few more questions to ask facts about avian flu, or influenza in general, to test knowledge about the disease. You should also ask the participant for their gender, age range, and education level.

For example, you might ask the following true or false questions:

1. Avian flu has been confirmed in migrating ducks in the US.
2. Avian flu is usually fatal for 90% of infected humans.
3. Most cases of avian flu have been reported from Asia.
4. Avian flu can be transmitted from human to human.
5. Avian flu is being spread around the world by migrating wild birds.
(Or, make a multiple choice or open-ended test. With a T/F test, you would expect someone with no knowledge to get 50% right).

Are you: M____ F____

What is your age range?
under 10
10-14
15-18
18-25
25-50
>50

My last year of school was:

Elementary school
7th grade
8th grade
High school graduate
1-2 years college
BS/BA
MA/MS
PhD/MD

With this additional data, you will be able to actually "measure" people's knowledge about avian flu. Then you can correlate the level of knowledge to gender, education, or age. If the answers to the fear portion of the survey are not clear-cut, you will at least have some data to present.

Also, (and this is really important), when you finish your final survey form, try it out on a few subjects to see if it works. If necessary, you can revise the wording. Once you start the real survey, you won't be able to change any detail without affecting the validity of the results.

I hope this will help.

Donna Hardy