Primary Research Proposal

As we continue to work on gathering and expanding an understanding on our research topics, we will be conducting primary research. There are a number of different possibilities for performing this research, two of which I am choosing to carry out throughout the next few weeks. My primary method of collecting data will be through conducting surveys. I hope to further supplement my data collection through the use of two fairly simple memory activities.

My reasons for choosing these methods over that of an interview is that (1) the most common and likely useful means for collecting data related to memory and forgetting evolve from experimental studies which are more closely related to surveys and ‘activities’ rather than interviews, and (2) I haven’t the slightest idea who to interview. Though I’m not quite sure how I will develop any side for an argumentative paper (unit 3), I feel I will get some very interesting and useful data from my proposed primary research methods.

The current plan is two administer two surveys to the students in my English 102 class. The first of which will ask basic memory questions related to ordinary forgetting. With the data collected, I hope to be able to produce visual representations of the kinds of things we forget on a daily basis and how often we experience ordinary forgetting of various tasks. I then plan to administer a second survey roughly a week after the first. This survey will also ask similar types of questions as experienced on survey number one, however it will also ask questions relating back to the first survey. Therefore, I am able to test student’s abilities to remember while continuing to gather basic memory and forgetting relating data.

Of course, the student’s will not be forewarned that the second survey will have information pertaining to the first. Hopefully, this will serve as a true test of remembering/forgetting information seemingly irrelevant to their everyday lives and provide an interesting data collection to work with.

One of the questions on the second survey asks the student’s how similar they think their survey results would be if they were given the first survey a second time. Therefore, I am hoping to choose a select few (maybe ¼ of the class or so) to repeat the first survey while the rest of the class takes the second survey. What I am hoping to achieve in doing this is gathering evidence to compare how students feel they would do in repeating the survey to how they actually do when repeating the survey. I think this could provide yet another interesting bit of information to work with.  

As far as supplementing this data with that of memory activities, I have two planned (one with each survey). These two activities will test the attention of the participants: one pertaining to spatial awareness, the other to attention to detail and change in the surrounding environment. Interestingly enough, males are said to typically score better at one, while females are said to typically score better at the other. The reasons behind these advantages are believed to lie in hormonal levels, specifically testosterone and oestrogen. However, I scored better on the one that males are said to typically score higher on. I think it will be interesting to see how the results of the class compare to that which is said to typically happen.

Overall, I feel that through the administration of these two surveys and two memory activities I will gather plenty of interesting data to work with and analyze. Much more than I feel I could ever obtain through an interview.