To create robust statistics - you need to ask 2 types of questions:
General or Non-Statistical
Statistical or Scalable Information
Here is a PDF from St. Mary's College in California that has many similarities with the assignment your instructor gave you: https://www.stmarys-ca.edu/sites/default/files/attachments/files/FACTORSTHATIMPACTSTUDENTSUCCESS.pdf
1. General Information sometimes called a Non-Statistical: What "Kind of a student" answered these question (From the example PDF it is on page 4 in PINK)
· Gender: Male, Female, None
· Residency: In state student, Out of State student
· GPA: 0.0 - 4.0
· Minority: White/Caucasian, Black, Hispanic, Native American, other
· Language: English is Native Language, English is Second Language(ESL)
· Major field of study:
· Home State = list the 52 states+
Have they sought personal counseling: Yes, No, Thought About it, Made appointment but didn't keep it, other
2. Scalable Information or sometimes called Statistical Question (also on page 4 of the PDF)
is where you can "RANK the answers" of the students satisfaction levels
· Now look on page 4 and see how the categories of Social, Academic, Financial, etc
· Could you scale this from 1 - 10 ???
· the smaller bulleted items could be how you explain what Social means ... for example
Please Rate from 1 - 10 where 1 = very engaged, and 10=no engagement
To your Community Engagement, Office Campus Social Interaction or Social Involvement or Social Satisfaction and Sense of Belonging. Or if you wanted more specifics you could ask individual questions in each category.
Think about when YOU take a survey - you are asked to put in your Name, eMail address and Major - think of these as General Information. After you have entered your basic/general information, you are then asked your opinions on different topics - this is the Scalable/Statistical Information. ex. Did you feel satisfied (1) to dissatisfied (10) about the amount of time you spent with faculty this semester.
The Scalable information gives you the statistics: 75% of students were satisfied with their Instructor Interaction.
But it doesn't break that percentage down into different KINDS of students, that is where the "General" or "Non-Statistical" information is used ex. 45% of Females and 30% of Males were satisfied with their instructors interaction.
I like the way Khan Academy explains the two types of Questions asked in Statistics. https://www.khanacademy.org/math/probability/statistical-studies/statistical-questions/v/statistical-questions
If you like watching videos to learn you may want to look at other videos on the left-navigation.
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Link to an Excel File used to assist in a Hypothesis
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_nsZH_N7X9mSVFzMkdkWklSVUE/view?usp=sharing
Here is the YouTube video that explains how to create the Excel File https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siqx4PbqJ6s