ENGLISH FOR ACADEMIC AND

PROFESSIONAL PURPOSES 12
4th Quarter
Week 5

LEARNING ACTIVITY SHEET

Division of Surigao del Sur
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 Competency:
o Conducts surveys, experiments or observations
(CS_EN11/12A-EAPP-IIe-j-8)
o Gathers information from surveys, experiments, or observations*
(CS_EN11/12A-EAPP-IIe-j-9)

Objectives: At the end of the week, you are expected to have:

o analyzed the article titled “The Digital Divide: The Challenge of
Technology and Equity”;
o administered and collected data from surveys, experiments, or
observations; and
o expressed appreciation on the importance of considering the ways to
avoid errors in conducting surveys, experiments, or observations.

Learner’s Tasks

Lesson Overview

To successfully conduct your research, it is important to plan your data gathering.

Researcher may conduct survey, experiment or observation in order to gather the
needed data. This session covers the important concepts in conducting surveys,
experiments or observations.

SURVEY
Fundamentally, a survey is a method of gathering information from a sample of
people, traditionally with the intention of generalizing the results to a larger
population. Surveys provide a critical source of data and insights for nearly everyone
engaged in the information economy, from businesses and the media to government
and academics.

A survey measures characteristics of interest about a population using a sample

selected from the population. As you saw in a previous lesson, a sample needs to be
representative of the population in order for the measurements obtained from the
sample to be accurate. Random sampling is generally the best way to ensure
representation. Even when random sampling is used, a survey’s results can have errors.
Some of the sources of errors are:

• Biased questions: The wording of questions in a survey can influence the way people
respond to questions. Survey questions need to be worded in a neutral, unbiased way.

• Interviewer effect: If an interviewer asks the questions in a survey, the person being
interviewed may give inaccurate responses to avoid being embarrassed.

• Nonresponse: Some people may be difficult to contact, or they may simply refuse
to participate once contacted. If nonresponse rates are higher for certain subgroups
of a population, then those subgroups will be underrepresented in the survey results.

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There are 4 modes of survey data collection that are commonly used.

1. Face-to-face surveys
2. Cellphone surveys
3. Self-administered paper and pencil surveys
4. Self-administered computer surveys (typically online)

Here is a list of the most common question types:

1. Multiple Choice: Multiple Choice questions form the basis of most research. They
can be displayed as a traditional list of choices or as a dropdown menu, select box,
etc.

2. Multi-Select: Multi-select is used when you want participants to select more than
one answer from a list.

3. Text Entry: Text Entry is used to gather open-ended feedback from respondents.
These responses can be lengthy essays, standard form information such as name and
email address, or anything in between.

4. Ranking Order: Rank Order is used to determine each respondent’s order of

preference for a list of items. These questions are best used when you want to measure
your respondents’ attitude toward something.

5. Rating Order: Rating questions are asked to indicate their personal levels on things
such as agreement, satisfaction, or frequency

6. Matrix Table: Matrix Table is used to collect multiple pieces of information in one
question. This type provides an effective way to condense your survey or to group
similar items into one question. An example is the Likert scale.

7. Slider: Sliders let respondents indicate their level of preference with a draggable
bar rather than a traditional button or checkbox.

8. Side by Side: Side by Side questions let you ask multiple questions in one condensed
table and provides an effective way of shortening your survey while gathering the
same amount of data.

EXPERIMENT

It is a procedure carried out to support, refute or validate a hypothesis. A deliberate

attempt to manipulate a situation, in order to test a hypothesis that a particular cause
creates a particular effect, in other words that varying input will affect the output.

Moreover, it provides insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome

occurs when a particular factor is manipulated. Furthermore, experiments vary greatly
in goal and scale but always rely on repeatable procedure and logical analysis of the
results. A good experimental design requires a strong understanding of the system you
are studying.

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In an experiment, researchers create a condition by imposing a treatment on some
of the subjects of the experiment. For instance, an experiment might be conducted
by having some people with eczema take a vitamin E pill daily, and then observing
whether their symptoms improve. In the experiment, taking the vitamin E pill is the
treatment

Step 1: Define your research question and variables. You should begin with a specific
research question in mind. You may need to spend time reading about your field of
study to identify knowledge gaps and to find questions that interest you.

Sample question: Phone use and sleep You want to know how phone use before
bedtime affects sleep patterns. Specifically, you ask how the number of minutes a
person uses their phone before sleep affects the number of hours they sleep.

Step 2: Write your hypothesis. Translate your research question into an experimental
hypothesis, define the main variables and make predictions about how they are
related. Start by simply listing the independent and dependent variables.

Research Question Independent Variable Dependent Variable

Phone Use and Sleep Minutes of phone use before Hours of sleep per night
sleep

Now that you have a strong conceptual understanding of the system you are
studying, you should be able to write a specific, testable hypothesis that addresses
your research question. Then you need to think about possible confounding variables
and consider how you might control for them in your experiment.

Confounding variable How to control it

Phone use and sleep Natural variation in sleep Control statistically:
patterns among individuals. measure the average
difference between sleep
with phone use and sleep
with phone use rather than
the average amount of
sleep per treatment group.

Now that you have a strong conceptual understanding of the system you are
studying, you should be able to write a specific, testable hypothesis that addresses
your research question.

Null (H0) hypothesis Alternate (Ha) hypothesis

Phone use and sleep Phone use before sleep does Increasing phone use
not correlate with the amount sleep leads to a decrease
of sleep a person gets. in sleep..

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Step 3: Design your experimental treatments
How you manipulate the independent variable can affect the experiment’s external
validity – that is, the extent to which the results can be generalized and applied to the
broader world. Phone-use experiment

You can choose to treat phone use as: - a categorical variable: either as binary
(yes/no) or as levels of a factor (no phone use, low phone use, high phone use). - a
continuous variable (minutes of phone use measured every night).

Step 4: Assign your subjects to treatment groups

How you apply your experimental treatments to your test subjects is crucial for
obtaining valid and reliable results.

First, you need to consider the study size: how many individuals will be included in the
experiment? In general, the more subjects you include, the greater your experiment’s
statistical power, which determines how much confidence you can have in your
results.

Then you need to randomly assign your subjects to treatment groups. Each group
receives a different level of the treatment (e.g. no phone use, low phone use, high
phone use).

You should also include a control group, which receives no treatment. The control
group tells us what would have happened to your test subjects without any
experimental intervention.

When assigning your subjects to groups, there are two main choices you need to
make:
-A completely randomized design vs a randomized block design.
-An independent measures design vs a repeated measures design

Randomization

An experiment can be completely randomized or randomized within blocks or strata.

In a completely randomized design, every subject is assigned to a treatment group at
random while in a randomized block design (aka stratified random design), subjects
are first grouped according to a characteristic they share, and then randomly
assigned to treatments within those groups.

Phone use and sleep Completely randomized design Randomized block design
Subjects are all randomly assigned a Subjects are first grouped
level of phone use using a random by age, and then phone
number generator use treatments are
randomly assigned within
these groups.

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OBSERVATION
It is a systematic data collection approach. Researchers use all of their senses to
examine people in natural settings or naturally occurring situations. Participant
observation involves an intensive interaction between the researcher and the
participants. This means that as participant observer, the researcher joins the group
he or she is studying in their environment and participate in their activities.

In Non-participant observation, the researcher does not participate in the activities of

the group being observed. This means that the researcher is not directly involved in
the situation he or she is observing. Non-participant observation may provide limited
insight into the meaning of the social context studied. If this contextual understanding
is important, participant observation might be needed. These two data collection
techniques can complement each other and be used together.

In an observational study, researchers determine whether an existing condition, called

a factor, in a population is related to a characteristic of interest. For instance, an
observational study might be used to find the incidence of heart disease among those
who smoke. In the study, being a smoker is the factor, and having heart disease is the
characteristic of interest.

How to Conduct Observations for Research

1. Identify Objective. Determine what you want to observe and why. Are looking to
see how students respond to a new environment? How customers interact with
employees? How bosses interact with subordinates? When conducting observations,
you are trying to learn habits, patterns, behaviors, reactions, and general information
about people in a particular environment to better understand what they do and,
hopefully eventually, why they do it (though observations alone often won’t tell you
the “why”).

2. Establish Recording Method. To make observations most effective, it’s important

that you minimize or eliminate any disruptive or unfamiliar devices into the
environment you wish to observe. For example, it is often least effective to video
record observations in situations where the people being observed know they are
being filmed (but it’s usually unethical to film without telling them. Note-taking is the
most common method, though in some public spaces you can take photographs,
audio recordings, and other methods.

3. Develop Questions and Techniques. Determine whether you are conducting an

informal or a formal observation (see explanations to the far right.) Knowing your
objective, determine if there are specific questions you have or if you are going in
completely open-minded. What you hope to learn will help you know what
specifically to look for. Be prepared when entering an observation space by having
a sound understanding of the type of information you are trying learn.

4. Observe and Take Notes. Visit the space you are hoping to get information from.
Be as unobtrusive as possible, taking notes, photographs, audio, and film, only where
it is allowed, you have permission, and it makes sense for the research without
disrupting the environment. If you are doing formal observations, will you need to
code certain behaviors, actions, words, visuals, and other observed data.

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5. Analyze Behaviors and Inferences. Separate the difference between what you
observed (which are factual behaviors) and why what you observed happened.
Typically, to make some sense of your observed data, you will need to interview
people in the environment you are observing, either during the observation itself, or
afterwards. Make connections between interactions, responses, behaviors, and other
phenomena.

Activity 1: Analyze Me
Directions: You are going to analyze the article by answering the questions bellow.
Write your answers on your answer sheet.

The Digital Divide: The Challenge of Technology and Equity

The digital divide between the population who have access to the internet and
information technology tools and those who don’t is based on income, race,
education, household type, and geographic location, but the gap between groups
is narrowing. Eighty-five percent of household with an income over $75,000 have
internet access, compared with less than 20 percent of the households with income
under $15,000. Over 80 percent of college graduates use the internet as compared
with 40 percent of high school completers and 13 percent of high school dropouts.
Seventy-two percent of household with two parents have internet access; 40 percent
of female, single parent households do. Differences are also found among
households and families from different racial and ethnic groups. Fifty-five percent of
white households, 31 percent of black households, 32 percent of Latino households,
68 percent of Asian or Pacific Islander households, and 39 percent of American,
Indian, Eskimos, or Aleut households have access to the internet. The number of
internet users who are children under nine years old and persons over fifty has more
than triple since 1997. Household in inner cities are less likely to have computers and
internet access than those in urban and rural areas. But the differences are no more
than 6 percent.

1. Is this a survey, an observational study, or an experiment? Why do you say so?

___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________

2. What details of the research does the article include? Is any important
information missing?
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________

3. What conclusion can you draw from the article?

___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________

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Activity 2: Conduct and Gather!

Directions: You will conduct a survey using the questionnaire that you created from
the previous lesson. Have a minimum of five and a maximum of 10 participants. The
survey can be done online through messenger or other online platforms. You can also
have it offline with your family members. Minimum health protocols should be strictly
followed. After which, collect the data for you to use in the next lesson.

Activity 3: Avoid Errors X

Directions: Read and answer the question below. Write your answer on your answer
sheet.

As mentioned above, a survey’s result can have errors. What can you do to avoid
these errors?

__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________

Formative Test
Directions: Carefully read the following questions and choose your answer from the
given choices. Write only the letter that corresponds to your answer on your answer
sheet.

1. The answer of the respondent is different from your belief. As a

researcher, what is it that you must do?
A. Tell him/her that the belief is irrational since today is a modern world.
B. Let him/her finish his/her response and tell him/her later about my
belief regarding the issue.
C. Make the respondent pause and insert my belief, since his/her answer
is not making any sense.
D. Listen and let his/her answer flow despite our differences in our beliefs.

2. There is a case in your community, where half of the community is having

eczema. As a researcher, what kind of research are you going to
conduct?
A. Experimental Study
B. Observational Study
C. Phenomenological Study
D. Survey

3. A subgroup of individuals in your research, refuse to answer the survey,

since it is a controversial matter. What will you do as a researcher?
A. Manipulate the survey.
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 B. Threaten the respondents to answer.
C. Lessen that subgroup in the survey result.
D. Just ignore them, and proceed to your next chapter.

4. You wanted to know, the best fertilizer that the farmers in your area are
using. What kind of method will you use?
A. Experiment
B. Investigate
C. Observation
D. Survey

5. What is the most meaningful reason why it is important that students

know how to conduct surveys, experiment, investigation, and
observations?
A. It is important that students know how to conduct surveys,
experiment, investigation, and observations because it will help us
contribute meaningful information that can be useful in our
communities.
B. It is important that students know how to conduct surveys,
experiment, investigation, and observations because discovering
something new will make us famous.
C. It is important that students know how to conduct surveys,
experiment, investigation, and observations because discoveries will
make us rich.
D. It is important that students know how to conduct surveys,
experiment, investigation, and observations because discoveries can
make us influential, and we can use that influence to threaten
people.

Answers Key

Activity 1: Answers may vary

Activity 2: Answers may vary
Activity 3: Answers may vary

References

Barrot J. S. & Sipacio P. J. (2016). English for academic and Professional Purposes for
Senior High School . C & E Publishing, Inc. South Triangle, Quezon City.

Valdez, P.N. (2016). English for Academic and Professional Purposes for Senior High
School Phoenix Publishing House Inc. Quezon Avenue, Quezon City.