Summary
I had three goals for my project
- First, I wanted to find out how much time K students spend using
different news sources.
- Second, I wanted to figure out what factors might be to blame for
any deficiency in students’ usage.
- Third, I wanted to find out what type of student organizational programming
could be used to best combat the predicted problem.
I took a random sampling of 70 students here at K with
a response rate of 62.8%. The first part of my survey dealt with students'
frequency of use and preferences concerning different news sources. The
second part consisted of questions that sought to gauge students' willingness
and interest in different types of student organizational programing. The
demographics section asked questions concerning different variables that
I thought may have some influence over the time that students spend getting
the news.
Findings
These were among the most interesting
findings from my research
- 77.27% of my sample reported reading the newspaper at least once
per week.
- At least 50% of my sample reads the newspaper at least twice per
week.
- 22.72% don't read the newspaper at all
- Students majoring in a social science read the newspaper almost three
times as much as students majoring in other areas
- There was no statistical difference found between male and female
students in the mean times they read the newspaper per week
- 86.36% of students reported using online news sources (online sources
were the most common way of getting the news)
- The average time spent on homework per night for my sample was 3.7
hours
- The most effective form of campus advertising was found to be the
tabe tent
- K students rarely use television, magazines, or radio to get their
news (with average times used per week of 1.75, 1.57, and 0.93 respectively)
Conclusion
From the raw data I collected in regards to newspaper
readership, K students do a much better job of informing themselves then
I had origionally hypothesized. However, with 22.72% of students not
reading the newspaper at all, there is room for improvement. From my
data, I could find no strong connection between the amount of time students
spent on homework and extra-curricular activities and the number of times
studentes read the newspaper. I had expected a negative correlation
between readership and time spent studying and on extra-curricular activities,
however I was unable to prove this. I did get very strong feedback
from students on the middle portion of the survey dealing with student organizational
programing. I asked subjects to rate either their approval of or interest
in, different types of programing that a hypothetical student organization
(acutally my own Global Issues House) might consider. The best way
to advertise on campus is to use a combonation of table tents, email, and
flyers in dorms. I found that I have a good base for support in the
K College community for my house and its basic mission. I found that
77.27% of students would take and read the New York Times if it were offered
for free at K. This tells me that if a readership program were to be
implemented here at K, that the chances of success would be quite hight.
Hopefully my house will be able to use the information gained from
my study to its advantage.
Copy of My Paper