Data Gathering

Preliminary data about the organization was gathered through POLISCY Online (link). Data with regard to information pertaining to the mailing list was gathered through an interview with the moderator of the mailing list, Mr. Jonathan Jaramillo.

Data with regard to the opinions and attitudes of the members of the organization concerning the new mailing list were collected using the survey method. After some research on the membership of the organization, the researchers approached classes that had a large number of POLISCY members (i.e. 12 or more) and distributed surveys to the POLISCY members present in the class through their contact persons. The researchers approached their contact persons and gave them 12 or 13 questionnaires and these persons distributed the questionnaires to POLISCY members in the class. After the class period of one hour, the researchers went back to the classroom and collected the accomplished questionnaires from their respective contact persons.

Data that could not be collected from the data gathering methods above, such as mailing list activity and message contents, were observed by the researchers by participating in the mailing list and observing the activities of the organization that took place during the duration of the study.