The business of market research has been expanding since the local enterprises make more and more efforts trying to understand consumers¡¦ needs with the assistances from market research firms offering new research methods and know-how supports. Given the overwhelming popularity of Internet and the fast-growing population of Internet users, online survey has become a popular research method that both academic and research communities widely employed with great potential opporutnities in the coming future. Since established in 1997, Focus Survey Research has been expanding its business scope with election research as its core business, and successfully covered its business to polls and market research since 2004. In order to provide clients with more comprehensive research services, FSR set up its online panel database since 2008 and started its strategy alliance with Easy Travel in 2011 launching E-Survey with a online panel database of 300,000 members, and started its online surevey business. This thesis would like to provide related industries or other new buiness units a reference by deep diving on different development stages of FSR, and evaluate how FSR could use its competitiveness to expand its online survey business and further define its marketing strategy planning. The thesis concludes that the three objectives of the online survey development strategy of FSR as follows: 1) Deploys more comprehensive research techniques to meet the clients¡¦ needs, and provide the clients with value-added services, which can help to expand the business scope of FSR accordingly; 2) Strategy alliances with partners from advertising, marketing, media buying and PR field to better increase the awareness of FSR among the market research industry; 3) FSR¡¦s expertise and experiences of conventional research can help to make up for the weakness of the online survey sampling. The combination of online survey with the expertise from offline survey could develop a better online study platform which could even provide clients with better deliverables. The thesis also aims to provide guidelines for FSR¡¦s online survey further strategy development. Given the marketing strategy of ¡§customized services¡¨, the further online business will cover either research studies among its panel database on social issues / consumer trends or customer satisfaction study among the name list provided by clients. Based on the two major business segments, FSR would be suggested to be positioned as ¡§a proactive and aggressive online survey information provider with good cost performance¡¨. Based on its business function, FSR is recommended to be positioned as ¡§clients¡¦ in-house research consultant and partner, which can provide consultations on research projects, handle research requests and assist coordinations.¡¨

Many researchers have examined religiosity, including measures of religiosity. However, researchers studying religiosity have often ignored behaviors associated with religion. The present research attempts to open up this area by constructing a measure of religiosity based completely on a study of overt behavior. The Behavioral Religiosity Inventory (BRI) determines which specific behaviors participants express as devotion to their religions and how much time they spend engaging in those religious activities. This measure of religiosity was constructed from responses given as part of focus groups, which provided valuable information about the daily religious life of college students. Three hundred ten college students were recruited and successfully completed all of the measures and requirements of this study, which included the BRI, and four other scales and demographic questions to validate the new measure. An exploratory factor analysis indicated that the BRI could assess three factors, Independent Activities, Ritualistic Traditional Activities, and Group Activities. Internal consistency was excellent for the overall survey, and the Independent and Group Activities factors. Finally, the validity coefficients comparing the BRI and the other measures of religiosity supported the validity of the BRI. The measure seemed to be well supported by all evidence.

Background: Fear of birth (FOB) is becoming increasingly recognised as a clinical issue that can have profound effects on the mother and her experience of pregnancy and birth. Failure to identify women with FOB could potentially lead to them feeling isolated and unsupported, and impact on their psychological health and the health of their baby. Aim: The main aim of this study was to gain an understanding of FOB and the associated impact on health professional practice, clinical outcomes and women's experiences of birth. The objectives were to: identify the most effective way of measuring FOB in clinical practice; investigate the most appropriate antenatal intervention to support women who fear childbirth; inform the study design for an RCT to assess the effectiveness of the intervention; and assess the most meaningful outcomes to include in future work. Methods: An explanatory mixed-methods study design was used. The first phase was a two-part online survey sent to Heads of Midwifery at 202 maternity units in the UK via Survey Monkey. Respondents were asked to give details of their unit in part 1 and service provision and evaluation for women with FOB in part 2. The second phase was a prospective cohort study of 148 women who had not experienced childbirth who were consecutively attending the Elisabeth Garrett Anderson and Obstetric Hospital, London or St Mary's Hospital, Manchester. Demographic data and details of sources of information on pregnancy were collected from participants in the first trimester along with their score on the tool chosen to measure FOB, the Fear Of Birth Scale (FOBS), and a saliva sample to measure cortisol level. In the third trimester, a second FOBS score and saliva sample were collected, and the Personal Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) and General Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) were administered to measure depression and anxiety respectively. Birth outcomes for the participants were collected from clinical records. In the third phase, 15 women participating in the second phase were purposively selected to reflect a range of FOBS scores and interviewed by telephone using a semi-structured interview to find out their experiences of pregnancy, being part of the study and service provision. Results: Response rates for the online survey were 63% for part 1 and 54% for part 2. Consultant obstetricians 25% had the most involvement in the care of women with FOB, followed by consultant midwives 21% and 30% had a designated midwife for dealing with FOB and only 32% provided specialist midwifery-led services for women with FOB, with 16% referring to a consultant obstetrician and 47% providing no specialist provision. No unit provided an evaluation of their services, although 19% had undertaken local audits. In the cohort study, using a cut-off of 54 for the FOBS, 30/148 (20%) had a FOB in the first trimester while 21/80 (26%) had a FOB in the third trimester. Compared with the first trimester, 51/80 women showed an increase in FOBS score, with 14 gaining and 7 losing a FOB. FOBS scores were not correlated with salivary cortisol in either trimester but they were correlated with PQH-9 and GAD-7 scores in the third trimester. They were also associated with a previous history of depression but only in the first trimester (p=0.011). FOBS scores showed considerable variability and a high measurement error, indicating a need for further refinement and psychometric testing. The qualitative interviews identified three themes underlying FOB: fearing the worst (pain, fear for the baby and fear of the unknown and complications), pathways to fear (friend-induced fear, mother-induced fear or reassurance and media-induced fear) and igniting or reducing fear (sources of information, support and communication). Conclusions: The FOBS is a potentially effective way of measuring FOB in clinical practice and research, but it requires enhancement informed by the themes identified by this study and psychometric testing in all three trimesters. An enhanced version of the FOBS could be used as the primary outcome to measure FOB during pregnancy in an RCT assessing the effectiveness of a suitable intervention, with the PHQ-9 and GAD-7 as secondary outcomes to measure depression and anxiety during pregnancy. An intervention to support primiparous women with FOB should be developed informed by the findings of this study, including components such as psychological education, relaxation, social support, reliable information sources and continuity of carer.

This text reflects on the perceptions of “native” and transfer agricultural students during their time at a Mississippi land grant university through a quantitative survey to all undergraduate students in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Mississippi State University. This research used an ex post facto survey to look at perceptions of native and transfer students enrolled in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Mississippi State University and determine if there were significant differences between the two groups in constructs of student experience. This study identified transfer and native students’ perceived collegiate experience in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Mississippi State University using an online survey. The findings from this study show no statistical significance between native and transfer students for any of the four constructs, but find a median value for all constructs to be higher than neutral on a Likert scale.

This thesis was concerned with the evaluation of products for online surveys and their utilization by the Consumers Defence Association. Afterwards the methodics for creating an online questionnaire was suggested and subsequently verified. The online survey was focused on members of the Consumers Defence Association. Within the verification of the methodics for creating an online questionnaire were realized mentioned pilot studies. By realizing this survey experience for giving advice was obtained.

Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / David S. Allen / This study examined pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) and Mathematics knowledge for teaching (MKT) from a perspective that blends existing definitions, questions, and methodologies into a unique method of collecting and analyzing data. Many studies on MKT have been done using qualitative methodology, usually with the researcher interviewing or testing individual teachers and analyzing that data using qualitative methods. A smaller number of studies have attempted to measure MKT using a quantitative approach, often times involving paper pencil tests with multiple choice and some open ended questions. Current research is also heavily weighted towards pre-service elementary teachers in the area of MKT for division by fractions (Depaepe et al, 2013). Although it may be true many pre-service elementary teachers have difficulties with division by fractions (Li & Kulm, 2008; Ma, 1999; Tirosh, 2000), we do not know if these problems persist for in-service elementary teachers or with secondary teachers at any stage. This study used a survey created by the researcher as a synthesis of existing questions from research on MKT with regards to division by fractions. This survey was delivered through an online format. The qualitative data in this research was then coded into quantitative data using a rubric developed by the researcher producing MKT scores that could be analyzed using statistical methods and generalized to a larger population. This study examined the Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching held by elementary, middle, and secondary in-service teachers in the domain of division by fractions. In particular this research asked if there was a relationship between the educational background, training, and experience of teachers and their MKT. Multiple analysis including independent t-tests, independent one-way ANOVAs, and Multiple regression analyses revealed that Middle school teachers and teaching at a middle school were significant predictors of increased MKT scores when compared with other groups of teachers. The type of teaching license, the type of degree held, total experience, and grade level experience were all found to have no significant relationship to MKT scores.

Provoked Vestibulodynia (PVD) is a common form of chronic genital pain, affecting approximately 12% of premenopausal women. Even though knowledge of vulvodynia has been present in the medical field for many years, it was previously thought to be of psychogenic origin and has never been thoroughly investigated for the purpose of pain classification. When investigating any pain condition, one of the most important distinctions to make is whether or not the pain is neuropathic. Even though this possibility has never been investigated in women with PVD, some have claimed that PVD pain contains elements of neuropathy, even treating this pain with medication created for neuropathic pain conditions. The purpose of this study was to use standardized measures and determine whether PVD may have a neuropathic component. Women with PVD completed an online survey assessing various pain and psychosocial variables. Their responses were compared with those of pain-free controls and women experiencing an established neuropathic pain condition, post-herpetic neuralgia (PHN). Women with PVD scored above established cut-offs on measures of neuropathic pain (NP). Further, for some NP measures there was no difference in scores between PVD and PHN women. Women with PVD also had similar psychosocial profiles as those with PHN, although women with PHN reported poorer health-related quality of life. Interestingly, the number of NP symptoms did not predict pain/psychosocial disturbance, or vary as a function of pain duration or intensity. Overall, these results lend support to the argument that PVD is a chronic pain condition. Further, these results indicate that women with PVD likely experience some form of NP. These results add to the understanding and classification of PVD, justifying further investigation, for example, via psychophysical testing and functional magnetic resonance imaging. / Thesis (Master, Psychology) -- Queen's University, 2011-09-21 16:25:34.216

The behaviour of WebRTC when the real-time communication with audio is done over a non-optimal network is investigated in this thesis. Different methods for collecting and analyzing data from an online survey are considered. A test environment was developed from which two online surveys would be conducted, where the outgoing packets had various interferences applied to them by the server. This was made in order to be able to simulate a non-optimal network e g WiFi. The participants are told to listen to various audio sequences and are asked to rate the quality as they perceive it. Although considered, video was not used in the surveys, as it would have increased the complexity of the surveys and increasing the risk of having the participants rejecting the surveys. Two independent surveys were conducted. The first survey utilized WebRTC for sending the audio, this was compared to the second survey which instead used Icecast. The result showed that WebRTC behaves well when there was only one type of interference added. Compared to Icecast it had lower performance. However, this could be contributed to the fact that two independent groups were used and the surveys had low participation rates. The surveys proved the feasibility of conducting online surveys for measuring perceived quality, although the participation rate was extremely low (2.8%), something that has to be considered when performing online surveys.

Spurred by the rapid influence of social media in the news industry, an increased number of TV news stations have started assigning dedicated social media journalists (SMJ) in newsrooms to monitor, gather, verify, share news, and engage with audiences on the streams of social media. Consequently, drawing on the diffusion of innovation theory, the present study probes into TV journalists’ perceptions of the implications of the role of this new type of TV professionals in the identity and profession of journalism, the quality of news pertaining to the verification of misinformation, and the news audiences’ attractions and viewership by capitalizing on audience engagement affordances. Moreover, based on an online survey delivered primarily via LinkedIn to a broad spectrum of TV journalists consisting of broadcast, website, and social media journalists in three varied regions of the world—the U.S, Western Europe, and the Middle East—the study demonstrates some concerns about the effects on the code of ethics of journalism. However, most of the surveyed journalists believed that the role of social media journalists SMJ is consistent with the general principles tethered to the professional identity of journalists. Additionally, the study underlines the weight of this role to verify information gleaned from social media before being used in TV news and asserts the significance of engaging with TV audiences to increase the news viewership and enhance their attractions. Accordingly, the study argues that espousing the role of SMJ has become an inevitable fashion in social media-embedded newsrooms. However, the research documents that many TV news channels have broadcast misinformation spread on social media. Furthermore, it unfolds that far less attention has been paid in many TV newsrooms to the potentially positive and beneficial utility of the role of SMJ concerning audience engagement. It signals that a lack of time, tools, strategy, and training causes the dilution of the role quality of SMJ, thereby suggesting that news channels can aggressively tap into this role if these obstacles are conquered. Finally, since research on this concern is still scant at its initial stage, the study shows some venues for future studies in this direction.

The diploma thesis deals with detection of satisficing caused by not reading the instruction below a question in the online survey in the Czech Republic. First, the issues of online survey is introduced from the theoretical point of view and cognitive aspects of the proces of creating a response to survey questions is described. Further, the term satisficing is explained, including its sources, forms and ways of measurement, and surveys and studies focused on satisficing detection are presented, including Instructional manipulation checks method which is crucial for the practical part of this thesis. Based on previously executed studies, the author designs hypotheses about the presence of satisficing in the online survey in the Czech Republic, and about the effect of respondent's socio-demographic and other factual characteristics; these hypotheses are subsequently verified using data from the conducted quantitative survey. The research results reveal considerable presence of satisficing caused by not reading the instruction below a question in the online survey. Furthermore, the impact of some socio-demographic and factul characteristics on the total amount of incorrectly answered control IMCs was proved. Building a model used to predict the probability with which the respondent will engage in...