News-Reading Behaviours of the South African Emigrant

[CChalmers]

During the course of the next day or two I will be uploading a link to a survey on News-reading Behaviors of the South African Emigrant.

The survey forms part of the practical requirements for a Research Methods course in the Psychology major of my Undergraduate degree.

Should you be interested in participating in the survey, watch this space for the consent form, which will be followed by a short online survey.

Thanks!

[Jordy]

Look forward to it.

[vaughanroe]

Could you not simply use the Poll tool on this forum?

Will this survey require personal information to be used?

Man alive! I am getting more and more cynical in my old age.

Edited March 27, 2015 by vaughanroe

[HansaPlease]

My guess is, with the forum poll, the results are only limited to forum members who can vote.

[CChalmers]

Could you not simply use the Poll tool on this forum?

Will this survey require personal information to be used?

Man alive! I am getting more and more cynical in my old age.

I originally tried to use this functionality on the SAUSA.org site as I am based in the USA, but that sites poll tool doesn't work, I was initially only going to post the survey on the USA site, so then had to come up with another method - hence Google Forms. I then only came across SAAustralia.org and SACanada.org, and thought that including as many Saffers as possible would be great.

It wont require personal info, although it may store your user name. For the purposes of the research however we are only interested in aggregate data, and there is nothing that could identify you personally, all questions are very standard.

Please feel free to contact me if you need any further info, we would love it if you took part but only if you are comfortable!

Thanks.

[CChalmers]

Please read the following and then click on the survey link at the bottom of the post:

INFORMED CONSENT FORM

You are being invited to take part in a research study titled “News-reading Behaviors in the South African Emigrant”. You are being invited to participate in this research study because you are a member of an online community that serves the interests of South Africans who seek to migrate, or have already migrated from South Africa to either the USA, Canada or Australia. If you take part in this study, you will be one of about forty-five people to do so.

The people in charge of this study are Celeste Chalmers and Elizabet Madjarac of Lindsey Wilson College. They are being sponsored in this research by Dr. William P. Neace, a full-time faculty member of Lindsey Wilson College. There may be other people on the research team assisting at different times during the study.

This study aims to find out if the frequency of South African news-reading behavior is different for individuals who migrate from South Africa to other regions. The study will be conducted by way of an online survey. The survey will be posted on the following forums: SAUSA.org, SACanada.org and SAAustralia.org.

The survey consists of 24 mandatory questions (multiple choice and rating scale) and should take a maximum of 15 minutes to complete, although there is no time limit. Responses will be collected by Google Forms software and data will be exported automatically into a secure online spreadsheet from where it will be analyzed.

Participation in this study is entirely voluntary. If you decide to take part in the study, it should be because you really want to volunteer. You will not lose any benefits or rights you would normally have if you choose not to volunteer. If you decide to take part in the study you still have the right to decide at any time that you no longer want to continue. You will not receive any payment or reward for taking part in this study. There are no costs associated with taking part in this study.

Your participation and the information you provide during the study will be kept confidential. Your information will be combined with information from other people taking part in the study. When we write up the study to share it with other researchers, we will write about this combined information. You will not be named or identified in these written materials. Only the person(s) in charge of this study, his/her personnel, and/or faculty sponsor will have access to the information you provide.

We will make every effort to prevent anyone who is not on the research team from knowing that you gave us information, or what that information is. For example, your screen name will be kept separate from the information you give, and these two things will be stored in different places under lock and key.

Before you decide whether to accept this invitation to take part in the study, please ask any questions that might come to mind now. Later, if you have questions about the study, you can contact the investigator, Celeste Chalmers at celeste.chalmers@lindsey.edu or on +1 270 250 3607, or Elizabet Madjarac at elizabet.madjarac@lindsey.edu. You may also contact our faculty sponsor, Dr. William P. Neace, via email to NeaceW@lindsey.edu, or by calling +1 270-384-8080. You will be told if any new information is learned that may affect your condition or influence your willingness to continue taking part in this study.

Neither the person in charge of the study nor any personnel involved in this study have any financial or personal interest in any company or instrument being used.

By clicking on the survey link, you confirm that you have read the above information and give your implied consent to participate in this study. Furthermore, you are aware that electronic submittal of this survey constitutes your signature.

The survey will be open until 3 April 2015.

http://goo.gl/forms/J9HQcI0pPI

[21yearsoutofrsa]

If you have already emigrated (and are not in the settled-migrant phase), does reading the news serve as a way of keeping your finger on the pulse should you need to return home? *

• Yes
  
• No
  
• Not sure
  

This is a required question

How much does reading South African news affect your anxiety level for family members / friends back home *

(on a scale of 1 – 5, 1 being not at all, 5 being very much so)

1

2

3

4

5

Not at all

Very much so

This is a required question

There are issues with the questionnaire. I get told the a question is required, when I do not meet the criteria of the question.

[CChalmers]

Hi 18yearsoutofrsa,

I have sent you a private message, let me know if that solves the problem?

Thanks

[Jordy]

Completed the survey for you. Some comments:

1. Although as the above poster points out, even if a question does not apply to oneself, an answer is required. I had to pick an answer at random in order to submit the form successfully. As all participants have to do this, it will influience your results.

2. Also some of the answers to the questions are mutually exclusive. For example, the question on visiting RSA - one could have visited several times and be willing to pay for family members to visit you. So just because I would be willing for family to visit me, does not mean I have visited RSA. Again both answers are equally valid but one can only selecty one answer.

3. Everyone's results are visible to everyone once you have completed the survey. Although anonymous, I am not sure this was your intention.

Good luck with the results.

[Nev]

Cool, also filled in,

Any chance you can give us some feedback once it is all done, i would be interested in the responses as well - due to my avid news reading

[shellykd]

Hi C

Filled it in ... as Jordy said I did not want to answer some questions simply because it was not applicable ...but I had to.

Please share your findings when all is said and done!

[CChalmers]

Thank you everyone for taking the time to fill out the survey. I realize there have been some issues, to be honest it was just supposed to be a simple process to gather some data to work with for a project and it has turned out to be slightly more complex. I will post the results when all is said and done and we've had a chance to see what the data tells us.

The survey is still open until Friday, and in due course I will post the findings here.

Apologies for the frustration caused by some of the questions. I suppose I should have picked an easier project!

[Mara]

I have also completed the survey... I did not answer the questions that were not relevant to me... I was allowed to submit the form... so I hope that was okay.

[Riekie]

Same as Mara - simply skipped the ones which did not apply and could still successfully submit.

[CChalmers]

Riekie and Mara, that is absolutely fine. We'll work with what we get! thanks

[HansaPlease]

All done!

[CChalmers]

Thank you to everyone who participated in the survey!

What was meant to be a simple survey has had 55 responses from this site, SAUSA.org and SACanada.org. While there were some survey design issues that had to be fixed in real time, we should be able to get enough data to see if our hypothesis is supported or not.

To read more about why we chose to do this survey, please read the attached Debriefing Sheet.

Debriefing sheet (final).doc

[CChalmers]

Thank you to everyone who participated in our survey.

I have uploaded a copy of the paper we wrote based on this study. In a nutshell, we found that the frequency of news-reading behavior does in fact increase (statistically significant) from pre to post and settled migrant phases. Our theory was that cognitive dissonance could be a factor - when living in SA, one reads the news less so as not to be confronted with the angst that the "should I stay or should I go?" debate brings on. Post emigration, perhaps one reads the news more to make oneself feel better about the decision to leave. Just a theory as we say, and I am sure there are many factors at play in the psyche of the South African emigrant!

Thanks again!

Cognitive Dissonance in the Reluctant Emigrant Study pdf.pdf