Assignment: The Survey Instrument
Assignment: The Survey Instrument
White, non-Hispanic). The South Boston Com-
munity Health Center is a community health centre
affiliated with BMC, which serves a mostly White,
non-Hispanic, low-income patient population.
Survey instrument
The survey instrument included a cover letter, 23
closed-ended questions and two open-ended
questions. Much of the content was derived from
instruments used in previously published studies
by Holmes-Rovner et al. and Graham et al.6,15
The cover letter briefly described the purpose of
the study, a statement that participation was
completely voluntary, the approximate amount
of time required to complete the survey, and a
statement that all responses are anonymous and
confidential. The closed-ended questions include
one item related to eligibility [confirmation of
participation in the clinical trial (yes ⁄no)], two items related to demographics (provider degree
and year of graduation), 12 items related to
perspectives on the impact of the tool on various
patient and provider components of SDM for
Colorectal cancer screening decision aid, P C Schroy, S Mylvaganam and P Davidson
� 2011 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Health Expectations, 17, pp.27–35
29
CRC screening (see Table 1), and eight items
related to perspectives on implementation or
content modification (see Tables 2 and 3). The
framing of the questions inferred a comparison
between patients exposed to the decision aid and
those not exposed, i.e., standard care patients,
regardless of their involvement in the study. All
of the items related to SDM used a 5-point Likert
scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5
(strongly agree). Six of the items related to
implementation or content modification also
used the same 5-point Likert scale, and two used
a single best answer format. The two open-ended
questions inquired about suggestions for
improving the decision aid and complaints. The
questionnaire took �10 min to complete.
Statistical analyses
Descriptive statistics were used to characterize
the study population and response data for all
closed-ended questions. Frequency data for the
5-point Likert scale
You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.
Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.
Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.
The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.
