Evening class focuses on survey research in natural resources management

For spring semester, Associate Professor Peter Fix will teach Survey Research in Natural Resources Management as an evening class.

“Social science surveys can be a valuable tool for natural resources management, however, obtaining valid results requires careful attention to the design of the questionnaire and methods used,” Fix said.

The course will explore theories and applications of attitudes applied to natural resources management and principles of survey design and analysis to quantify perceptions of the issues.

Using the book, Navigating Environmental Attitudes, by Thomas Heberlein, students will learn:

•    How to incorporate insights from the attitude and value concept to inform natural resource   management and how those concepts can be integrated into research questions
•    How to develop a questionnaire to quantitatively measure research questions/hypotheses
•    Methods to assess the reliability of a survey and validity of results
•    Strengths and weaknesses of different survey methods
•    Steps to go from raw survey data to data analysis
•    Basic statistical analysis in Statistical Package for the Social Sciences

The course will be taught Mondays and Wednesdays from 5:30 to 7 p.m. in the O’Neill Building, room 305, on West Ridge.

“We hope the class will appeal to working professionals desiring or needing to learn about survey research,” Fix said.