Is Age Really Just a Number?

I designed this question to gain peoples general attitudes towards age being just a number without attaching it to a specific situation. I posed the statement, 'Age is Just a Number', then I gave them options to choose from and below are the results. 56% agree or strongly agree, which is what I thought would reflect general attitudes towards the statement. I was surprised that 34% disagree to some extent.

Image: Authors own

Age Gaps : Who Took This Survey

These two diagrams are the results of who from my network filled out my second survey. The same principles apply when looking at these two diagrams and the diagrams from 'Age to Have Children : Who Took This Survey'. I had a higher percentage of females, a wide spread age range but with a cluster in the lower region.

Images: Authors own

Age to Have Children : Who Took This Survey

These two diagrams are the results of who from my network filled out my first survey. These decreased by 1 or 2 as each survey that was issued, but generally the results contain similar numbers, genders and percentages with minute differences. As you can see, the majority of my participants were female. I had a vast range of ages, but a cluster of people around the age of 20. I tried to gain more weak-ties but even though I had, my friends, friends of friends and so on are of a similar age to me (I am 20 and female). Although I have the cluster in the lower age range, at least I managed to gain a vast variety of ages. I would have also like to have got feedback from the older generations, this has probably not happened as my survey was created using SurveyMonkey, an online method; which the older generations maybe don't use as much as the younger generations. Also as you can see from this previous post that only a minute percentage of Facebook and Twitter users are over 65, and these were my main sources I used to get my survey's viewed.

Images: Authors own

Results

I gained a significant amount of respondents for my survey's. Starting from 42 to 39. They decreased as each one was created, not by many but this could have been because my network was slowly becoming disinterested in my research area and overloaded with questions.

One Final Questionnaire

I have created one final Questionnaire to help me conclude some answers towards my final presentation. This survey has been created to gain some answers on the subject of children growing up too fast and people growing younger as they get older.

Poor Survey Responses

I have made two surveys now, but am disappointed with the amount of responses when posting to my Facebook group and twitter won't accept the link. 

I therefore I need to access different online networks to get my survey out there, especially as I would like to create a third. I could also go out to the public approach people face to face and interview them to gather responses. 

Image: Print screen from: Facebook. 2012. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=516022786. [Accessed 17 February 2012].

Survey Monkey

Here is another questionnaire I have created for this topic of conversation. When researching and discussing with the public I have noticed that a key topic that keeps reappearing is age gaps in relationships. This questionnaire has been designed to address this matter for example:

Image: Caroline Flack defends Harry Styles relationship. 2011/12. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.a1social.com/2011/12/caroline-flack-defends-harry-styles-relationship/. [Accessed 16 February 2012].

Survey Monkey

I have just created a questionnaire on the age to have children using an online questionnaire formatter called Survey Monkey. I have then posted this survey on my Facebook wall, Twitter, Mumsnet and Is Age Really Just a Number group and page. Hopefully I will get lots of responses from this survey and find out some information on the subject of age around parenting. 

Developing a Questionnaire

I will be creating a few questionnaires to gain results which I can clearly collect, organise and analyse data received. I have decided to develop a few questionnaires to gain different typed of data:

• Quantitative data. This is data is classed in numerical forms such as percentages and statistics. To gain this information I will be asking the genders and ages of the participants of the survey. This way I can see how fair or unfair my questionnaires results are and discover why my results are so. I will be asking a few opinions by giving a statement and seeing to what extend people agree. This will enable me to compare more easily the different attitudes towards these subject areas in statistical ratio form. This can be portrayed in graph form.
• Qualitative data (data categorised with describing meaning, rather than statistics). To gain this type of answer I will be asking open questions to receive individuals opinions. This will enable people to have free range and may even give me insights into the topic I have not yet thought of. These opinions can then be mapped by choosing the most commonly said views and rewriting this as a majority verdict. 

When writing my questionnaire I need to make sure my questions are clear and precise. This is so that people taking the survey do not get disinterested and exit before completion. It also will ensure that my results are what I am looking for and people haven't given the wrong answer due to their confusion. When giving options for answers which need selecting I need to make sure that the options do not overlap and that their is always an option result that anyone can choose.

I will be creating my questionnaire using SurveyMonkey this is an online software tool in which you can create surveys, collect responses and analyse results.  

Image: Wufoo Blog · Holy Donkey Kong! SurveyMonkey Acquires Wufoo!. 2011. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.wufoo.com/2011/04/25/wufoo-surveymonkey-acquisition/. [Accessed 03 March 2012].