Surveying The Northfield Community

Originally I decided I wanted to go around to different churches and do a few surveys at each one I visited.  However, because my project is not actually considered research, it is only investigative, I decided just to bring my surveys down to my job and ask customers to fill them out.  I got 10 people to fill out my survey at Aquatic Pets, 1 person from Jacobson's, and 2 people from my church.  I would have liked to have gotten more surveys filled out, but that didn't happen.

I have never actually done a survey like this before, and therefore was a little intimidated by what was ahead of me.  I know I hate being asked to fill out surveys, but I'm a New Yorker... I think New Yorkers just get a little tired of people invading their space - the city is crowded enough as it is without someone trying to get all in your face, asking for personal information that you really don't care to hand out to a perfect stranger!  

For the most part, even the people who said "no" when I asked them if they would help me out with my Senior Project by filling out my survey and consent form (thank you Pete for making the general format for my consent form) were pretty nice and respectful about it. That was nice!  Afterall, having someone roll their eyes or yell at you is never very pleasant!  

For statistical analyses, I grouped people into two different "religious" categories.  One was a "yes" or "no" category, on whether or not the subject regularly attended a church or other religious institution in Northfield.  The other was a "yes" or "no" category, on whether or not there was a specific place or activity in which they felt closest to God.  I decided to do it this way to hopefully split up the people who believe in God into different levels of practice, in hopes that more categories could possibly uncover any correlations more easily despite lurking variables.  

The only relationship I found to be statistically significant (p<.05) was a relationship between whether or not an individual attended a church or other religious institution regularly and the rating of their own environmental concern.  And it seems as though it's actually the people who don't go attend church regularly who are more concerned about the urbanization issue in Northfield.  of course, because my study is only investigative, further research should be done, with more in depth survey questions, and a more random sample of people.

Another thing, that seemed to be interesting, was that most people, religious and not-so-religious alike stated that the places where they felt closest to God were in natural settings, such as by rivers and lakes, as well as forested areas.  One of the answers which was repeated a few times was "the boundary waters."  Isn't it interesting that despite our actions, such as our willingness to urbanize and expand, we still seem to feel some sort of spiritual connection to the environment?  Won't we feel as though we are missing something if what is left of the natural beauty in Northfield is lost?  This also ought be investigated further.