Research+Plan


 * Research question and any associated hypotheses** – What do you want to know and what difference will it make to know it?

Perception, awareness and needs of non-VF organizations. I'd like to see this worded in the form of a question, for example: For nonprofit organizations that are not associated with Volunteer Fairfax, what are their needs related to volunteers and volunteer management? Do you know what VF is? Do you know what VF has to offer? What does your organization need for a volunteer center? I would word these bullets in the third person (not "you" but Do these organizations know ....).


 * Brief (two paragraphs) summary of any literature from your literature review** that directly or indirectly informs your research question (could have similar populations, variables, or methods).

This article addresses the interconnection of political socialization and identity development. It seeks to shed light on the social processes through which youth become engaged in political activities and issues, and also discuss the influences of family and peers as well as participants in community service and other civic activities. One of the major questions addressed in this article is whether or not social-historical context instantiated in social relationships and actions plays a pivotal role in the process and shape of political socialization and identity formation. Another question explored is how participation in a service-learning program encourages reflections on personal agency and government responsibility.

The research obtained from this study draws upon empirical work on youths' civic and community activities in order to show how political development is played out in everyday lives of adolescents, while also addressing the long-term impact of the program by presenting data from alumni 3, 5, and 10 years after participation. This article helps stress the need to get youth involved in community service. With the focus on Volunteer Fairfax, the study presented in this article can introduce a new field of volunteers to the organization that had not otherwise known of its existence.

Yates, M. & Youniss, J. (1998). Community service and political identity deve lopment in adolescence. //Journal of Social Issues, 54(//3), 495-512.

I'm really not understanding the connection you are making between this article and your study. Think about articles you have that inform you about the context of nonprofit and volunteer management. What might their needs be given what you know from the literature review?


 * Subjects and sampling plan** – Who or what do you plan to investigate? How will you gain access to this population? Do you need a consent form? Why or why not?

We plan on investigating non Volunteer Fairfax organizations by surveying them and receiving feedback on why they are not associated with Volunteer Fairfax or why they dropped from the company. Volunteer Fairfax gave us specific lists of organizations that are not associated with the company or dropped the company. Our job is to find out why they did so through a survey. We have a consent form making sure the person surveyed is aware that our information found might be displayed to the public and all the basic consent questions.

The sampling plan should describe more fully:
 * who your subjects are - be more specific: nonprofit organizations in the fairfax region that are not associates or partners of VF. Remember you aren't contacting an org, but PEOPLE, so clarify who those people likely are: probably the volunteer coordinators, however if the organization is smaller, it may just be the Director of the nonprofit. Just generally expand on all of this.
 * The list VF has doesn't include organizations who were members and dropped, just people they have made contact with that didn't end up registering.
 * Remember that we also have a list of organizations that are registered with VF but aren't paying the $50 or $100 annually to be associates or partners. Are you including those in your study or are you only doing the organizations that have not registered in any way?
 * Good job describing the random sampling. I'd like to have you expand on how and your reasoning for it. How will you ensure the groups you choose are truly random? Given that you don't start with a true list of every organization in the population, you'll need to address that the you are starting with a list of the organizations you were able to find. Can you also talk about why you decided to do a random sample and not just send the survey out to every contact you have? What are the pluses and drawbacks of those options and why did you decide as you did?
 * Make sure the plan for informed consent is clear. When do they get the consent form? How do they indicate consent? I know a person can figure that out from what you've eventually linked to, but spell it out here - make it all as obvious and clear as you can.


 * Instrumentation and any associated protocols**

We will be using survey monkey (an online survey tool) to gather our information. The organizations we will be sending the survey to, will be chosen randomly from of list Fairfax county volunteer organizations that are not on VF list! Two lists of subjects are being discussed here - are you doing one or both? One is VF's list of folks who contacted them but didn't register with them or become associates/partners. The other is your list of area nonprofits that you have compared to VF's to select the one's that are not associates or partners.

Before sending the survey we will be calling the organizations we choose to inform them that we will be sending out a survey to them; requesting the survey to be back within a timely manner! Prior to sending them the email and calling them, the order described here doesn't make sense. a courtesy email will be sent on the 14th of April to remind them have the survey completed by the 18th of April. Included in the survey will be a range of 10-14 questions, presented in a skip pattern. Questions will be asked in format of multiple choice, as well as comment box will be added to questions were necessary. Our consent form will be included to let the organizations decided whether or not they will like to volunteer; phone consent What does phone consent mean? How can they give consent over the phone? You really don't need both. will be done as well prior to the survey. Due to whether or not the organization gives consent, they may or may not choose to complete the survey.

Your questions and consent form seem to be rough drafts and not final versions. **If you have a final version please get it to me as soon as possible so I can go over them with VF.** As you work on a final version of the consent form, I would generally say to remember that informed consent if first and foremost an ethical, not legal issue. I would encourage you to have the tone be friendly and concerned for their welfare, rather than legal.


 * Timeline**

April 6, 2011 meet with Samantha, Claudette, and Jasmine will distinguish who is a member of Volunteer Fairfax and who is not. As we are selecting who is a member and not, we will contact via phone to alert the organizations of our project and later send out an email. Be sure you have a script to follow here so everyone is saying the same thing. Choose carefully how you describe the project - you want them to believe you are doing credible professional work. April 7, 2011 finish contacting via phone & email to the non-member organizations and send out the link of our survey monkey April 14. 2011 send out courtesy email about completing the survey in a timely fashion, in case some organizations haven’t finished or started April 18, 2011 deadline for all surveys to be completed from all the organization April 20, 2011 collectively meet as a group and interpret data based on percentages, and responses We'll be doing this in class, so you'll have time for this. I'd keep gathering data up until the 20th. Just make sure that you know how to get the data from SurveyMonkey so you can bring it to class on the 21st.


 * Initial plans for data analysis** – what will you do once you have completed your interviews, surveys, or observations? How will you go about making meaning of the data you have collected?

Our group is using a survey as a means for attaining our answers as to why nonprofit organizations haven’t joined with Volunteer Fairfax and to also find out what these nonprofit organizations want from volunteer centers. After we have looked at the responses that we’ve collected, we are going to try and find any common ground between the answers and put them in categories so that when we report our findings to Volunteer Fairfax, they will be able to see why these groups didn’t join. We hope that from this, they will be able to find ways to change and/or improve their approach towards attaining members.

This item of the research plan is really trying to help you think about how the data will be reported and used. This is an important step and often helps you think about how to redesign the questions. Think about how you will report back the answers you get on each question. Will you say what % of the subjects indicated each answer? Will you have a graph showing how many subjects indicated each answer? Will reporting the numerical average answer be informative? I would encourage you to do this for each question.


 * Ideas for connecting to other sub-studies** – How will the findings of your project inform the other research projects conducted by your group? What ideas do you have for synthesizing results?

Both survey teams used the survey and the focus group script to find out information to give to Volunteer Fairfax. Since each group did independent work, it could be helpful to have each group ask related but not identical questions. The answers to these questions would help Volunteer Fairfax understand how asking a similar question from a different point of view can have either the same or slightly different answers. If the answers are the same or very similar then this would be helpful in figuring out a plan of action based on the information. If the answers were very different, it would also be helpful in clarifying what people might really be saying. If the three groups cooperate and develop a more coordinated process for the questions on the survey, the results will be more helpful. Exactly - so have you done that? Look at the questions the other groups have posed on the research plans. Communicate with those teams to identify the issues you are bringing up and the exact wording of questions. If you want to be able to compare what members said vs. non-members, then you need to word the questions as nearly the same as possible.