Evelyn Oborny
Professor Anderson
Praxis 3 Essay
The articles retrieved for the RING project was to help create a better
understanding of the research that has been done already about the topics of
condoms and college students. The Use of emergency contraceptive pills and condoms
by college students researched the relationship between Emergency Contraceptive
Pills (ECP) and condoms in college students. This study focused on the role of
Emergency Contraceptive Pills and condoms in college and examines the intentions,
knowledge, and attitudes of college students towards condoms. The article Women,
Men, and Condoms hypothesized that college men and college women would differ
on each of the four domains of attitudes about condoms. The second goal in this
research was to investigate links between condom use and condom attitudes. Both
of these articles gave me a better perspective and understanding on the topic of
condoms and college students, which gave me a better understanding about our
RING topic.
In our research, we conducted a survey about condom use on the George
Mason University campus. It asked questions about demographics, condom usage,
condom frequency, and other related questions. In Use of Emergency Contraceptive
Pills and condoms by college students and Women, Men, and Condoms, they also
conducted surveys for college students in order to collect their data. Use of
emergency contraceptive pills and condoms by college students constructed a
questionnaire that included questions about demographics, the intent to use
Emergency Contraceptive Pills and condoms, and attitudes toward condoms and
Emergency Contraceptive Pills. In Women, Men, and Condoms the results were
separated by gender and ethnic identity, which indicates that the survey asked
questions about the individuals’ demographics. The questions about demographics
in both of the articles and in our research indicates that demographics are an
important aspect in any research since there are so many different types and variety
of people on college campuses and around the world.
Although our RING assignment was to research the use of condoms on the
George Mason University campus, both of these articles gave a significant amount of
information on what to expect from our research. In Use of Emergency Contraceptive
Pills and condoms by college students, the results displayed that attitudes toward
using condoms were more favorable among females than males, but males had a
significantly favorable view of Emergency Contraceptive Pills than females. Women,
Men, and Condoms showed that women were consistently more positive about
condoms then men, and was explained that this was because women were more
cautious than men. Both of these articles showed results that women were more
favorable of condoms than men, which gave an insight to what to expect from our
surveys and observations.
Based on these two articles, I became more aware of the differing attitudes
toward sex, condoms, and sexually transmitted diseases around college campuses.
Researching the two articles allowed our group to research how to display our
results, ways to obtain our results, and how to analyze our results. Both of my
articles used tables and charts rather than graphs to display their results, but our
RING group used pie charts to display our results. By using pie graphs, we were able
to share our outcome visually for our audience in the presentation. Another thing
we learned from this assignment is the importance of demographics in our research.
Both of my articles asked the important demographics questions to better
understand the wide variety of our surveyors and to better analyze the results of
our surveys. In our surveys, we placed the demographic questions on the beginning.
Our demographic question asked about gender, ethnicity, age, class, living
arrangements (on campus/ off campus with parents/ off campus with roommate or
alone), city/suburb/rural, and whether they were sexually active. With these
demographic questions, we were able to identify out subjects and create a data
analysis table that was beneficial to our research. Both articles retrieved their data
through surveys using a 5-point scale, with degrees of 1 being “strongly disagree” to
5 being “strongly agree”. For the questions that applied, we used the 5-point scale
but added “not specified” into our results due to some people not answering or
other elements. However, all of our questions had either 5 or 6 answers that the
surveyors could circle as their answer, which is similar to the majority of the
surveys the articles utilized in their research. A factor in these surveys is the
amount of truth in the survey answers. We had to place trust in out surveyors
because their sex life is a private thing and we did realize that some people might
under or over exaggerate their sex life, so that is a factor we considered when we
analyzed out data.
This research done by our RING group will provide George Mason
University’s Office of Alcohol, Drug, and Health Education with information and data
on condoms and sex on the college campus. In order to examine different college
campuses, we researched other college campuses and found out that George Mason
University is unique due the fact that George Mason University has a specific office
for alcohol, drugs, and health education. We were also one of the few campuses to
hand out free condoms. Other colleges carried condoms, but sold them for a reduced
rate. George Mason University is also unique compared to other college campuses
due to the fact that we hold sexual education events around campus in order to
spread information on sexually transmitted diseases, condoms, and sex.
Our question “Where are the condoms at George Mason University going?”
required in-depth research in order to answer our question. By answering this
question, we were required to step out of our preferred way of knowing and
consider the question from various viewpoints. As a student, we want to know this
question since we are paying for the distribution of condoms on this campus. As the
Office of Alcohol, Drugs, and Health Education, they wanted to know whether they
were meeting the needs of students and whether they are providing the right
amount of condoms and other sexual protection for the students of George Mason
University.
The RING project has placed my group and I to ask private sex questions to
complete strangers. Through this experience, I have been able to apply the articles
throughout the RING project. By having these articles to provide us with
background information, we were able to create a sophisticated process that would
be able to professionally and accurately answer the question “Where are the
condoms going?” By performing this research, we were able to provide George
Mason University’s Office of Alcohol, Drugs, and Health Education with the
information they were seeking. Overall, the Praxis assignments and the articles
supplied our RING group with the necessary amount of background information in
order to help us construct our investigation. Through these articles, we were able to
learn about different research methods, qualitative and quantitative research, and
ways of displaying our research and data into a presentation. Based on the response
from Danielle and our audience, I believe that our investigation on condoms at
George Mason University has definitely aided the future decisions on condoms and
sexual education at this campus.
I was not able to present my Praxis 3 assignment in class, so I was not able to
gain peer review from my peers. However, I did get some feedback from my
roommates. They fixed a couple of grammatical problems, but overall they seemed
impressed by the amount of work we performed in order to legitimately answer the
question, “Where are the condoms going?” Also, as they are both sexually active,
they were also very curious and interested in the results of our project.