Post #12: Participants

In my research, I will be using undergraduate and if available graduate students as my participants.  They will be heterosexual males and females, that will be in committed or non-committed relationships.  Culture and religious perspectives will not be considered in this study.  It is my hope that I will find participants for my interview in my classes, and participants for my survey all over campus at random selection.  For my interviews, I will need about five couples (five males, five females).  But for my surveys, I am hoping to get fifty random people of different genders to question.  In respect to this research, participants’ privacy could be considered in danger.  Sex is a topic that many consider private, and by questioning their private sexual lives I could be threatening how they view the safety of their privacy.  To help protect their privacy the surveys will remain anonymous.  In the instance of my interviewing, I will ask the questions personally and have a consent form available for them to sign.  This consent form will also contain a section devoted to ensuring that everything stated will remain anonymous. 

Questions pertaining to my methods section include confusion about materials.  A lot of what I have found on how to write methods states that I have to include a list of materials used in my study.  I do not know whether or not I should include this, so I will look at examples to find the answer to that question.

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