Week 6B--Presenting Our Data

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I surveyed a group of 15 college students (P1-P15) ranging from 17-19 years of age about their overall level of rest with the amount of importance they place on sleep. Students that placed a higer "value" on sleep than others tended to show that they would forgo other activities in order to get sleep. The Participants were asked to rate five statements on a scale of 1-5 with 1 being "I completely disagree" and 5 being "I completely agree".

Statement 1 (S1): I feel well rested most of the time.

Statement 2 (S2): Sleep is of high priority to me.

Statement 3 (S3): Tiredness does not interfere with my daily routine.

Statement 4 (S4): Compared to my other activities sleep is less important. 

Statement 5 (S5): I have to take frequent naps to keep up with my schedule.

 For "satisfaction with body" answers were rated 1-3, 1 being unsatisfied, 2 being sometimes satisfied, and 3 being satisfied.

"# of hours spent exercising" was on a scale from 0-6 hours. 

 "Enjoyment" was determined on a 1-3 scale, 1 meaning the participant does not enjoy exercising, 2 meaning they sometimes enjoy exercising, and 3 meaning they enjoy exercising.

"# of hours" is on a scale from 0-6, same as the graph above. 

I surveyed 17 Athletes and 20 Non-Athletes.

 The subjects of this survey were random 15 students in my hall (Rhoads South 1st). This survey was to see how much exercise students were getting at college, considering the workload and extracurricular activities that they have to worry about. It was also to see how much of an impact students believed exercise had on their daily lives.

Question 1

Question 2

Question 3

Question 4 

Question 5 

The results showed that 7 out of 15 students have barely been getting any exercise every since they came to Bryn Mawr. Yet, 12 of those 15 students strongly believe that it is important for schools to require students to participate in a club sport or to take a physical education class every year. Students are well aware of the fact that exercise has a positive effect on their overall lifestyle (academic, mood and organization wise), and that it has been scientifically proved that exercise is a stimulus for happiness. From this survey, it is fair to conclude that not enough students have a healthy exercise habit, which is a problem, because many strongly believe that exercise can reduce stress, become more organized, and feel relieved.

 I had a lot of data to present because my questions had many dimensions. The first graph compares hours spent doing homework to hours spent sleeping. I thought this graph set up was the best way to compare both times. The rest of the graphs are in a different format and they may seem confusing at first until you understand what is going on. Each number on the scale is represented by a certain color, which is made clear in the legend on the side. The bar above each section compares the range from the scale answered for that question. For example, in the second graph, one can see that more people "always" do their homework after dinner than "rarely". Also, one can compare positive responses and negative responses. For example, most people chose "always", "most of the time", or "sometimes, but usually" for after dinner (positive responses) as oppose to "sometimes, but usually not", "rarely", and "never" (negative responses). This way of reading the graph is common for all the graphs except the 1st. The free response questions I asked at the beginning and end were just for my interest and not for the purpose of graphing. Also, the option "other" was chosen so infrequently (only two times) that I discarded it from my graphs so as not to have any unnecessary outliers. 

Thanks again to everyone who completed the survey I handed out on Thursday!

I wanted to find out if being actively engaged with something that is personally meaningful can counter depression (regardless of personal health habits). I sorted the answers to my questions into three groups - health habits, levels of engagement and symptoms of depression.  You can see the results in the chart below.

Yellow = personal health habits

Purple = level of engagement

Blue = depression

 The numbers at the bottom indicate individual respondents (24), the numbers on the left are perecentages (how depressed, engaged, healthy, etc.) up to 100%.

From this small sample, it looks like levels of engagement tend to correspond with personal health habits and that, in general, depression is conversely related to both.