Group 4: Steven de Bara, Jake Berg, Dori Hellar, Nick Petersen, Cassie Sulmeisters and Marina

Tomei
MKT312A - Marketing Research
Group Research Project - Assignment 3
10/14/16
To assess the political opinions of college students ages 18-23, and the degree to which
these opinions are shaped by parental influence, we have created a survey to be administered
online. Created with Qualtrics, our survey consists of 49 Likert statements, organized into four
categories: Political Opinions (Self), Political Opinions (Parent 1), Parental Relationship (Parent
1), Political Opinions (Parent 2), and Parental Relationship (Parent 2.) Following these Likert
statements, the survey concludes with four multiple choice questions, asking for the respondents
age, gender, whether or not they feel autonomous from their parents (a real adult), and finally,
whether or not they plan to vote in the upcoming election. Considering that the election is fast
approaching, our team hopes to distribute this survey no later than October 20th, allowing for
about three weeks of responses before the election on November 8th. Further, we plan to hold a
focus group on November 7th to gain further insight into this issue, with more in-depth responses
from participants.
Our survey will allow us to reach a large number of respondents within a short amount of
time, at no financial cost. Though the intimate setting of our focus group will provide its own set
of benefits (the opportunity for more in-depth responses, in particular) a focus group alone would
not be enough to draw conclusions. Correlations from our research can only be applicable to the
real world if we have a large sample size. As such, the focus group will simply add to what we
have already learned from our survey results, for which we hope to reach at least 250
respondents.
In creating our survey, we avoided any short-answer, open-ended questions, as this could
discourage participation. We also avoided simple-dichotomy questions, opting instead for a
Likert scale, to reflect the complexity of both political opinions and parental relationships. When
it comes to politics, many people have complicated feelings and emotions regarding issues and
candidates, and so it is important to have options such as Somewhat Agree,Somewhat
Disagree, etc. Also, the option of Neither Agree Nor Disagree takes into account that many
young people are not very interested in politics and this election, and do not plan to vote. Further,

we have chosen to use a focus group in order to gain a more in-depth understanding of a nuanced
issue. Our goal with our focus group is to contextualize the indications of our findings, and to
clarify any questions that may spring from these results. Inviting a diverse group of five to six
Bryant students to partake in the focus group, our moderator will facilitate a considerate yet
honest conversation in which opinions are shared and the themes of the study are explored in
depth. Contingent upon the consent of our participants, the conversation will be recorded for
research purposes.