Assignment Question
Final Project: Story Map Instruction Now that you learned how to design your research, it’s time for you to develop your research question and the appropriate method for data collection. To test your method, you need to collect some pilot data and evaluate them. You also need to create a story map to share your methods and findings. Follow these six steps to work on your final project.
1. Choose your topic and method You first need to choose one topic out of the following four sections from the neighborhood environment audit/survey, and develop your own research question. To give you more concrete examples, here are some possible research questions that you may consider, but you can be flexible with your research question within the topic of your choice. Keep in mind that, for some research questions, an audit would be more appropriate for data collection. For some other research questions, a survey would be more appropriate. Choose the method that best suits your research question. Don’t mix audit and survey methods in one instrument. Topic Possible Research Question (Appropriate Method of Data Collection) Infrastructure
1. How do pedestrian facilities influence the attractiveness for walking? (audit)
2. How do bicycle facilities influence the attractiveness for biking? (audit)
3. How does public transit infrastructure influence the overall satisfaction of public transit service? (survey) 4. How do traffic control devices influence the perception of traffic safety? (audit / survey) Safety/social environment
5. How does knowledge about traffic accidents influence the perception of traffic safety? (survey)
6. How does neighborhood maintenance level influence the perception of crime safety? (audit / survey)
7. How does neighborhood cohesion influence the overall satisfaction of neighborhood? (survey) Natural environment
8. How do neighborhood amenities influence the overall attractiveness of neighborhood? (audit / survey)
9. How do neighborhood disamenities influence the overall satisfaction of neighborhood? (survey) 10. How does biodiversity influence the overall attractiveness of neighborhood? (audit / survey) Access to services
11. How does access to food influence the overall satisfaction of neighborhood? (survey)
12. How does access to shopping influence the overall quality of neighborhood? (audit / survey)
13. How does access to public services influence the level of neighbor cohesion? (audit / survey)
14. How does access to health care influence the overall satisfaction of neighborhood? (survey) To provide more context about your neighborhood, you should take 4-6 photos of your neighborhood. You can also take a video showing your neighborhood and include that video clip as part of your story map.
2. Conduct a literature review on your topic Focus on the topic that you chose, and study that topic by doing a literature review of relevant research papers (refer to the Lab 5 activity). You may use Google Scholar to search for relevant papers related to your topic. Make sure to do a through search and find at least 3 relevant papers. Write a summary of these three papers to provide a background for your research question.
3. Develop specific questions for your audit / survey Operationalize your research question into several variables that can be measured (at least 4 variables). Use the ope-rationalization table that you used for Assignment 3 to guide this process. For your final questions, you need to develop at least 10 questions and possible answers for each question. In the final instrument, you must include 3 questions about demographics and 3 questions about overall assessment. The rest of the 4 questions should be related to the topic that you chose.
4. Test your audit / survey instrument in your neighborhood Collect data using your instrument and record the data as an excel file. Your excel table should look something like this. If you are doing a survey, replace the “segment_start” and “segment_end” columns with a “nearby_intersection” column. Audit data example person_id date time neighborhood segment_start segment_end Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6 Q7 Q8 Q9 Q10 P01 Nov 20, 2023 11:00AM Millcreek 3300 S & 2300 E 3300 S & 2000 E male 28 Hispanic 5 4 2 2 4 3 1 P01 Nov 21, 2023 5:00PM Millcreek 3300 S & 2300 E 3435 S & 2300 E male 28 Hispanic 3 4 4 2 1 1 3 … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Survey data example person_id datetime neighborhood nearby_intersection Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6 Q7 Q8 Q9 Q10 P01 Nov 20, 2023 11:00AM Millcreek 3300 S & 2300 E female 25 White 5 4 2 2 4 3 1 P02 Nov 21, 2023 5:00PM Millcreek 3300 S & 2300 E male 31 Hispanic 3 4 4 2 1 1 3 … … … … … … … … … … … … … … For students developing an audit instrument, you need to select at least 5 segments around your neighborhood. Conduct a field audit on those five segments during the morning and the evening, so you should collect 10 observations (5 in the morning, 5 in the evening). Because there is only one person doing the audit, you will repeat the demographic questions, but that’s okay. In the audit instrument, make sure to include a starting intersection and an ending intersection. For example, if you look at the Segment 1 from the Lab 11 activityLinks to an external site., the starting intersection is S. Temple & 700 E, and the ending intersection is 700 E & S. Temple. For students developing a survey instrument, you need to conduct a survey with at least 10 people in your neighborhood. You can do this with your family members and your neighbors/friends, but your survey participants must reside in your neighborhood. In the survey instrument, make sure to include a question about the nearby intersection of the participants’ residence. For example, if you live in East Millcreek, your nearby intersection could be 3300 S & 2300 E.
5. Analyze and evaluate your audit / survey responses After collecting the data using your instrument, analyze the responses. What is the central tendency (e.g. mean, mode, frequency, percentage)? What is the variability (e.g. standard deviation)? You can either present the entire table or just a summary of the data based on your analysis. You then need to evaluate your questions. First, discuss the validity of your questions. Do your questions correctly measure what you want to measure? Second, discuss the reliability of your questions. For the audit, do you get consistent answers during the morning and the evening? For the survey, do you get consistent answers from different people?
6. Create a StoryMap for your final presentation and deliverable You will create a StoryMap (https://storymaps.comLinks to an external site.) for your final project deliverable. Don’t get confused with the ArcGIS StoryMaps (https://storymaps.arcgis.comLinks to an external site.). They are both from the same company, but the former StoryMaps is a free publicly available app where you can embed external links. The latter ArcGIS StoryMaps doesn’t allow you to embed external links. In your StoryMaps, make sure to have three major sections, including 1) questions, 2) methods, and 3) findings. To get full credit, make sure to include all the items below. Most importantly, be sure to review the rubrics at the end of this assignment. Start with a catchy title and a nice background image (use royalty free image websites, like pixabay.com). Include your name, name of this course, and date/year.
Questions: Provide some background and previous literature related to your topic (summarize at least thee papers). Describe your research question or hypothesis. Include one map showing the location of your neighborhood, and include 4-6 photos of your neighborhood illustrating the topic that you are addressing in your research. You can also include a video of your neighborhood to make it more fun and personal. Methods: Describe how you operationalized your research question into measurable variables. Include the operationalization table and your audit / survey instrument. Findings: Present your data table or a summary of your data.
Describe the pattern you see in your data (e.g. central tendency, variability, frequency, etc.) Evaluate the validity and reliability of your questions. Discuss how to improve your audit/survey instrument and draw a conclusion. References. Final Presentation During the last week of the class, we will have a mini exhibition showcasing all your work. For the exhibition, you need to prepare a brief presentation using your story map. If you are still early with your story map design, you can use a power-point for your presentation. If you are still analyzing your data, make sure to have some preliminary findings so that your colleagues can evaluate your work. One half of the class will present their findings on Tuesday, and the other half of the class will present their findings on Thursday. You are required to attend the mini exhibition in person (both Tuesday and Thursday sessions) and provide critical feedback to at least five classmates. Each person will provide anonymous feedback to five classmates, so be collegial and constructive, rather than negative and judgmental. The peer feedback will be used for assessing the quality of your final project. Story Map You need to submit a PDF of your Story Map. In your story map, make sure to include a link to your story map, so that we can click your story map from the PDF document. To convert your story map to a PDF file, you can click the more link (…) and select Print preview and Print. Submission The final project presentation and StoryMap should be submitted as a single PDF/Word file to Canvas through the Assignment feature. For detailed instruction, follow this link: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Student-Guide/How-do-I-submit-an-online-assignment/ta-p/503Links to an external site.