Voting Turnout in Hartwick Students
Hannah Ruszala
November 29, 2012
Research Methods
Empirical Research Project
Rocking the Wick: How Hartwick Student Vote and
Do They Turn Out to Vote?
My project is the result of my own personal story about getting my absentee ballot. I applied for an absentee ballot using the Hartwick on-campus registration drive, I filled it out and they sent it to my county. Unfortunately there was a mistake and my form ended up in the wrong county. The other county called me to tell me and they faxed my form to the proper county, I received my absentee ballot, and sent it in time to vote. However that experience lead to the questions I hoped to answer in my project. My goal was to interview students and ask them if they registered to vote and how, did they encounter any problems, and if after registering to vote they did end up voting. I felt it would be interesting because, during an election year, the youth vote is highly talked about and why the youth has the lowest turnout rate out of any voter age demographic. There are three types of data collection techniques, surveys, content analysis, and document analysis. Survey research, as defined by Johnson and Reynolds (2012), “involves the collecting information via a questionnaire or survey instrument (a carefully structured or scripted set of questions that may be administered face-to-face, by telephone, by mail, by Internet, or by other means)” (p. 307). The second, content analysis is the systematic coding of written records and the classification of its contents or in other words, “a systematic procedure by which records are transformed into quantitative data” (Johnson and Reynolds, 2012, p. 303). Basically you are taking qualitative information and turning it into quantitative. Finally document analysis involves using research that others have already conducted and often the research’s original intention may be different from what you would use it for. I used face-to-face surveys as my population is
November 29, 2012
Research Methods
Empirical Research Project
Rocking the Wick: How Hartwick Student Vote and
Do They Turn Out to Vote?
My project is the result of my own personal story about getting my absentee ballot. I applied for an absentee ballot using the Hartwick on-campus registration drive, I filled it out and they sent it to my county. Unfortunately there was a mistake and my form ended up in the wrong county. The other county called me to tell me and they faxed my form to the proper county, I received my absentee ballot, and sent it in time to vote. However that experience lead to the questions I hoped to answer in my project. My goal was to interview students and ask them if they registered to vote and how, did they encounter any problems, and if after registering to vote they did end up voting. I felt it would be interesting because, during an election year, the youth vote is highly talked about and why the youth has the lowest turnout rate out of any voter age demographic. There are three types of data collection techniques, surveys, content analysis, and document analysis. Survey research, as defined by Johnson and Reynolds (2012), “involves the collecting information via a questionnaire or survey instrument (a carefully structured or scripted set of questions that may be administered face-to-face, by telephone, by mail, by Internet, or by other means)” (p. 307). The second, content analysis is the systematic coding of written records and the classification of its contents or in other words, “a systematic procedure by which records are transformed into quantitative data” (Johnson and Reynolds, 2012, p. 303). Basically you are taking qualitative information and turning it into quantitative. Finally document analysis involves using research that others have already conducted and often the research’s original intention may be different from what you would use it for. I used face-to-face surveys as my population is
Cited: Johnson, J. B., & Reynolds, H. T., (2012). Political Science Research Methods(7th ed.). London: SAGE Publications