Safe Zones Evaluation - Social Attitudes

General Idea

Apply "social attitudes" reading to topic of discussion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered issues in the classroom. See how the components of an attitude (thoughts-feelings-behavioral intentions) and behaviors are connected and where they are less connected. Look at when attitudes cause behavior, when behavior sometimes cause attitudes, and when they are unrelated.

For questions #14 - #16, pick a different attitude that might be related to this one.  

Goals:

(1) We'll see if the components of the attitudes are strongly or weakly related to each other, and to behavior.

(2) As part of the Safe Zone project on campus, we'll try to measure what "safe" means for GLBTQA folks and try to measure what a "meaningful conversation" around GLBT issues means. (In a survey at another institution, people commented that they said the Safe Zones project game them "opportunities to have meaningful discussions about GLBT issues". Some of these questions are meant to tap that idea. How well did it work? Do you have suggestions?)

Survey 2 people who took classes at Pierce College Fall quarter 2000. Be sure that they fill out the information separate from other people and return it to you anonymously. Make a copy of both completed surveys and turn in.

	Attitude has 3 components
		Attitude
		|
	--------	-------------	-----------
	|	|	|
	|	|	|
	Feelings	Thoughts	Behavioral Intentions

Look at when attitudes cause behavior, when behavior sometimes cause attitudes, and when they are unrelated.

Help in writing report

1. Background and concepts:

Describe how survey taps different components of attitude, which ones are thoughts, feelings, behavioral intentions, behaviors. Based on information in chapter, why wouldn't we expect these components to match perfectly for each person?

2. Data:

Straightforward: include survey results. Can also include the person's response to taking survey.

3. Summarize Data:

Where did components of attitude match together well, where was there more of a mismatch? For each person, can you identify which levels of attitude they have (see attached sheet), based on their answers to these questions?  For example, look at the difference between questions 5, 6, 7, which are very related, but not the same.  

4. Evaluate Data

One of the hard things in attitude research is to decide if there is one general attitude that organizes a wide variety of behavior (e.g. "school is good" affects all classes) or separate attitudes ("psychology is annoying, but biology is fun") that affect different areas of behavior. Does your data suggest that there is a separate "what I hear" attitude from "what I say and do" attitude (an attitude toward receiving information and an attitude toward giving information)?

You can also use concepts from text (like cognitive dissonance) to discuss why components might not match.

Consider how the wording of the question may have affected the outcome. What does "regularly" mean in question #4?  How did you participants interpret it?  What does "speak up in classes" mean to participants in question #12, #13?  What effect would asking "I will discuss GLBT issues in a non-judgmental manner" or  "I will speak up in support of GLBT people".

For an example, visit this home page: http://www.safeschools-wa.org/ and read about their studies. This page (http://www.safeschools-wa.org/quant_intro.html) gives good examples of research methods issues. Later sections show wording of actual questions.

For This Project: