Attitude Survey Essay Example for Free

Attitude Survey Essay In certain situations, it is important for psychologists to understand the attitudes of people on different issues. Attitude surveys are how psychologists gather information about attitudes of people. Then, they take this information and turn the results into empirical evidence to back up the theory or question that is impending. A person’s attitude can affect thought and behavior processes such as cognitive thinking, emotional reaction, and physical behaviors (Hogan, 2007). For my survey, I used the Likert method of attitude scale to develop my attitude assessment. I wanted to find what the attitude of smokers and non-smokers have about the smoking ban in restaurants. This paper will examine and discuss the development of my survey, administration process, scoring of the surveys, and the interpretation of the scores. Also, issues that I had while designing the survey will be discussed. Attitude Survey The development of my survey was taken from an issue that I personally was interested in because I am a smoker. When the ban first became a law, I heard many people, including myself; complain about the right to have a smoking section in restaurants for individuals who smoked. The ban has now been in effect for a few years, and I wanted to find out if smokers and non-smokers attitudes had changed on this issue. Survey Design In designing my survey, I used the Likert scale because I felt it would be the best way to gather the information I needed. This survey was designed to see how people view smoking in restaurants. These questions were answered by 6 different people, of which 3 were smokers and 3 were non-smokers. The surveyors were asked to answer each question by stating strongly agree, agree, undecided, disagree, or strongly disagree. The numerical scores for each question range from-2 to +2. Administration, Scoring, and Interpreting Results Administration consisted of me going to neighbor’s doors and asking them eleven questions about the smoking ban. I wanted to make sure that there were not so many questions that it would take too long. The length of time administering the test helped in getting people to take the time to answer these few short questions. The neighbors I chose were already acquainted with me as well, and that helped them to be comfortable and willing to answer my survey questions. For the scoring of the survey the lower the score the lower the satisfaction of the ban, and the higher the score implies the higher level of satisfaction. When I designed the survey I made sure that for each unfavorable answer of strongly disagree corresponded with a negative feeling towards the smoking ban. When interpreting the scores, usually it is better to have a good number of participants to answer the questions because it makes it more reliable to be able to look at the trends of how the questions are answered. Preliminary Design Issues Issues that I had were trying to get enough people to answer my survey questions. I also had an issue of how to figure the scores and put them into a scale. It took me a little time to understand how to correctly design and score. I also wanted to ask the right questions, as well as keep the survey questions short, so that people did not get tired of answering questions before the end however, still cover all the basic questions needed for this survey. I also did not want the questions to be as if I were repeating myself, so this took me a little while to figure out how to properly word my questions so to cover all the information I would need for scoring and interpretation. In conclusion, the survey I chose was to find out the attitudes of people on the smoking ban in restaurants. I used the Likert method of attitude scale for my design because I felt it was the best way to assess my selected issue. I tried to create questions that would cover cognitive factors, emotional responses, and physical behaviors in order to accurately score and interpret the attitudes about the smoking ban issue amongst smokers and non-smokers alike. References Hogan, T.P. (2007). Psychological testing: A practical introduction (2nd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.