Friday, May 27, 2016

Testing the Hypothesis, Part 1

Students living in dorms or apartments without yards are unable to obtain freshly grown organic foods at an inexpensive price because of higher production costs associated with growing organic crops compared to conventionally produced crops.

The who: Students living in dorms or apartments without yards

The what: They are unable to easily obtain freshly grown organic foods at an inexpensive price

The why: Higher production costs associated with growing organic crops compared to conventionally produced crops

Testing the who: From the interviews, it seems that mostly people in the current ‘who’ share the need.

Testing the what: Some boundaries of the need would include what kinds of crops would people want to grow on their garden space and the other ways students obtain organic, fresh foods.

Testing the why: Most of the people I interviewed seemed to share the same issues with the need: they would like their diet to consist of more organic fresh foods, but the availability of lower cost fresh foods is low. They all provided a similar explanation for the problem.


Note: I would greatly appreciate any critique or feedback on structuring my interviews in order to make them longer. The first one was kind of short because I tried to conduct the interview without any basic structure. In the later ones, I was able to make some kind of format, but even then, they were kind of short. Towards the end of each interview I tended to struggle with coming up with other questions and it was a tad bit awkward.

Interviews


Interviews 1-3



Interviews 4-5

6 comments:

  1. Overall you've done a great job with conducting the interviews. The one thing I would recommend so you get a better experience is coming up with a list of open questions that way you don't give your interviewee the opportunity to give a worded answers. Also ask questions to form demographics in your research, you did this with your second interviewee and with this you can collect data that can be given a quantitative value instead of solely a qualitative one. But you have done a great job, keep it up.

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  2. You did a fantastic job with your interviews and developing your idea into more of a tangible situation. If you aren't already a FRE major, I would strongly recommend taking a couple of classes in the college as well as speaking with the administrators there because I'm certain that they would be more than happy to help you form your product and make it a reality.

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  4. This is an excellent topic! There is a great need for more organic foods. It is very unfortunate that it costs so much more to eat non-GMO containing foods. I do not know if you aware of the garden plots available to UF students and staff for only $15 for 6 months, plus an initial $35 deposit. It is a really neat cooperative where you can learn how to garden using non-GMO products, you can learn from your fellow gardeners and the best part is that you can swap vegetables with the other gardeners.

    Tips for interviewing: I am by no means great at interviewing. In fact, this assignment was my first, but I took some notes while listening to your interviews that may be able to help you.

    1. Stay on topic, unless the interviewee feels the need to touch on another subject. I feel like you veered off you hypothesis to fill the time in the interview. People love to talk, you just have to ask the right questions.

    2. Have thought provoking questions ready to go. In my interviews, I asked everyone how they would solve the problem. That sparked their creativity and made them think deeper on the subject.

    3. I struggled with one of my interviews in the beginning. It seemed like the interviewee was really shy, but as she shared, I added my own experiences to the conversation, which made her feel more comfortable with me, which led to her talking a lot more.

    Great job overall! It is a really interesting topic to me. Check out the UF Organic Gardens Cooperative.

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  5. Excellent post. I thought the interviews were great; they didn’t seem as awkward as I thought it would be. A lot of the questions could have been more open-ended so that we could gain more insight about how the subject feels about GMOs, organic farming, etc. It also seems like you have a passion for this topic. I would suggest bringing out more of your experiences to the interview. I think it could make it easier for you and the interviewee to bond.

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  6. Excellent post. I thought the interviews were great; they didn’t seem as awkward as I thought it would be. A lot of the questions could have been more open-ended so that we could gain more insight about how the subject feels about GMOs, organic farming, etc. It also seems like you have a passion for this topic. I would suggest bringing out more of your experiences to the interview. I think it could make it easier for you and the interviewee to bond.

    ReplyDelete