Journal work

Some tips for class Emmerald on how to complete their Religion Journal on a survey about young people and difficulty in praying.

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Gender balance in surveys

Source

Class Emerald included the boys from the Salesians school in their survey.

Why did we try to have gender balance in our survey?
So that one group is not under-represented or that the survey is not largely dominated by one gender or the other.
Women make up over half the world's population.
Millennium Development Goal No 3 is all about gender balance.

Gender equality is about enabling male and female respondents to contribute to and benefit from participation - when we shared our results this meant that the boys from the Salesians would also learn why young people find it difficult to pray.

Conducting a survey

A survey consists of:

• A sample
• A method of data collection (e.g., a questionnaire)
• Individual questions that can be analyzed statistically.

Depending on its purpose, a single survey may focus on different types of topics such as:

1. Respondents preferences (e.g., for a presidential candidate),
2. Respondents opinions (e.g., should we wear a tie at school?),
3. Respondents behaviour (smoking and alcohol use), or
4. Factual information about the respondents (e.g., age)

Here is the first page of the survey class Emerald created to explore the reasons why young people today find it difficult to pray.

Brainstorming for Journal work

Braintorming is a very useful way to approach a journal project work. It is used when you are not sure what to write about. Brainstorming can also be used to guide the project in a certain direction when you know the journal topic that you wish to explore. It helps you to gather your thoughts and ideas before you begin the work. The end result of brainstorming should be lists of words or phrases that are somehow related to the topic. These lists may be helpful in the preliminary writing process.

Class Emerald did some brainstorming as they began their Religion journal work. The first step is to create a mind map of the topic. Here is a photo of the mind map they made.

This helped them explore the reasons why young people find it difficult to pray, and helped them organise the words and phrases into categories which then helped them formulate the questions for their survey.

Why brainstorm?
One person's idea may spark another person's thoughts that sparks another person's and may ultimately lead to a better answer than any one person would come up with on their own.

What are the advantages of brainstorming?
It encourages creative thinking.
Everyone has a chance to contribute.
Everyones ideas are accepted.
It makes everyone a part of the team.
It is exciting and easy to do.