Data Collection

Hello Friends!

Today was very exciting for all of us because we finally got to collect some data! We all woke up around 7 a.m. We made our way to Kefah's office around 8 or 8:30 a.m. We had all our questionnaire packets organized and ready to be printed. We went down to the print shop in the basement of the Public Relations building. We created an assembly line where three of us put the questionnaires together (they are several pages each), a very kind man helped straighten the piles out, then finally, one of us stapled the questionnaires together. We put together the questionnaire packets for the women and men, including the open response sections. We did not have the mother's questionnaire packet or either of the Figure Rating Scales ready for today's data collection unfortunately. We will be able to pass out the mother's questionnaire on Sunday. All of the women who agree to participate in our study will be asked to bring home a specfic questionnaire for their mother's to fill out. This will allow us to make generational comparisons.

We got to collect data in four different classrooms. Two of the classes were in the school of arts and two of the classes were in the school of education. We split into two groups while collecting data because we surveyed classrooms that were held at the same time.

It is quite different collecting data in a foreign country. We intentionally smiled at the students and were friendly in order to connect with them across the language barrier. It felt good to get many smiles back. Also, as we thanked the students for thier participation, they seemed just as thankful for the experience. We learned that surveys are not common here. In one of the classrooms, we were told that the students have never filled out a survey for research before.

We celebrated our first day of data collection with a wonderful lunch with Kefah and her nephew. Then we relaxed in our room, and enjoyed our evening with a swim in the women's campus pool and a walk through the city.

The four of us girls are feeling very accomplished as we sit in the living room. We just completed organizing and coding 156 surveys. We are excited to continue our research Sunday morning (Jordan's first business day of the week; tomorrow is the weekend).

We are hoping to head into Amman tomorrow after a good night's sleep!

وداعا,
Ashley, Bonnie, Heidi, and Kaitlyn :)