The Lunchroom Conflict

Survey Taken By:Ben Horrocks and Shaylee Young

The Survey

• Our survey was to find out what the students thought of how the lunch line works. We decided that we would randomly go to people’s tables and have them fill out our survey. We had two surveys, one an unbiased survey, and the other with questions worded based on if the subject were upperclassmen or lowerclassmen. We worded the biased survey to appeal to the upperclassmen, knowing that everybody will be there someday.

Sampling Procedure• We decided to take random table samples instead of ask a certain number of

students for each grade.• First we counted and assigned each of the tables a number (we decided not to

include the teacher table or the students who eat on the bench in our survey.).• Then we used our random number generator on our calculators to select 7

different tables for each lunch hour. We selected 7 because we thought that it would give us a good amount of samples depending on how many students were on each table.

• Ben took the unbiased and asked tables 6, 9, 15, 27, 2, 13, and 36. Shaylee took the bias surveys and asked tables 28, 2, 29, 27, 13, 8, and 10. Each student on the randomly chosen tables were asked to answer our survey.

• We wanted to make the survey short so that students would be more willing to participate. Our bias question asked the student to explain why they answered no instead of yes in hopes that they would would not want to explain and they would just answer yes so they could get it over with.

Survey Artifact

• Underclassman Lunch Line SurveyKnowing that you will be upperclassmen in a few years, are you satisfied with the way the lunch line works? If not, please explain.Yes or no• Upperclassman Lunch Line SurveyKnowing that you were an underclassman and you had to be at the end of the lunch line, are you satisfied with the way the lunch line is? If not, please explain.Yes or no

Lunch Line SurveyAre you satisfied with the way the lunch line works?1. Very dissatisfied 2. Somewhat Dissatisfied 3.Nuetral 4.Somewhat Satisfied 5.Very Satisfied

Unbiased Survey Biased Survey

Survey Challenges

• When we were first carrying out our survey, we were going to try and go to a bunch of individuals and try and get them to take our survey. Finally, we had to change our sampling to lunch tables because we didn’t have time and resources to be able to go to every student individually.

• We also had a problem of trying to conduct our survey when one or both of us weren’t there.

• Lastly, we were not able to get what class each person was in, so we could not break up our data according to class.

Non-Response and other Biases

• We had did not have a problem with nonresponse bias, but we did have a bias against anyone who doesn’t sit at a lunch table, those who had lunch detention the day we did the survey, and also a bias with anyone who happened to leave before we were able to conduct the survey.

Improvements for next survey

• Next time we should include more days of when we give out the survey, so that more people who weren’t at lunch have the chance to do the survey. Also we will try to include the benches around the lunchroom so that those who don’t eat at the tables still have a chance to answer the survey.

Unbiased Survey

How do you feel about the Lunch Line?

Very Satisfied 7Somewhat Satisfied 3Nuetral 8Somewhat Dissatisfied 6Very Dissatisfied 8

Total Surveyed: 32

Results from Unbiased Survey

• It seems as though a little bit more than a third of the student population doesn’t like the way the lunch line works.

• Exactly one fourth of the students were neutral, meaning that they really didn’t care or they didn’t know what they thought.

• A little bit less than a third of the students were happy with the way the lunch line was.

• It seems as though the student population is almost evenly torn on what we should do with the lunch line, but I think those who were neutral were happy with the way things were, so we should keep the lunch line the way it is.

Bias SurveyAre you satisfied with the way the lunch line works?

Total (upper and under classmen)

Results from Bias Survey

• Only 6 students answered “no” to the bias question

• Because of the way we worded the biased question, most students chose the easiest answer so they would not have to explain. I got comments like “you know most students will answer yes, right?”

• Therefore, our bias question worked! So it looks like seniors still rule…