Getting Respondents

Author: Kiya Britt | Major: Animal Science | Semester: Fall 2024

My name is Kiya Britt, and I am a Bumpers honors student in animal science. Finishing my second year at UARK, I enrolled in a class with Dr. Popp and Dr. Hancox where we were presented with creating a research project on health and wellness in Arkansas. Over the semester, my group with Dr. Popp decided to research maternal and reproductive health, and create a survey to gather students’ attitudes and knowledge surrounding these topics. This semester, we created and released the survey, gathered preliminary results, and presented the first results in class. Going forward, we plan to analyze the full results over the summer, and present our findings to colleges around the state next fall at our yearly summit.

I believe the findings of this research could help garner an understanding of reproductive health on campus, and reduce risky behavior regarding sexual activity. From our results, we found that 45% of the respondents had only received a sexual education class in middle school, and 30% had not received one at all. With these percentages being so high, we plan on using the information we gather on knowledge on sexual and maternal health to create a module covering the lesser-known, but still important information when incoming freshmen take their University Perspectives classes.

Through this semester, Dr. Popp was an amazing resource for teaching the group the basis of research. She walked us through each step, while letting us fail and revise safely, and she only stepped in when necessary to help us grow. Coming into the semester, I had no idea how to format a literature review, but she taught me how to help with where to start, and things we needed to revise. She also made videos walking the group through data analysis, and showing us how she wanted us to format our conclusions.

This summer, we have more results to analyze, and we are doing chi squared tests for applicable questions. Before this summer, we only analyzed the basics of each answer, looking only at what percentages of respondents picked which answer. Now, we are going to be looking at the right and wrong answers, and seeing if there are any

significant differences between demographic groups. After our in-depth analysis, we plan on presenting our findings at the state capitol during our yearly summit. After the summit, we plan on creating a module using the data from the questions that had the least correct answers chosen. From there, we can present our findings to the university, and try to implement our module into the University Perspectives.

After students enroll in the class, we will have them take the same survey before and after the module, and guage what changes need to be made each year. Using this method, we wish for the University Perspectives class to change with the knowledge base of the students enrolling, and using this survey as a basis, we might be able to do the same with other subjects. I am interested in the final results and implications our survey could have on the university.