Blog Post #2

Overview

When developing my project, "The Impact of Tanning Culture on Adolescents", my own questions were what motivated my research, aiming to uncover the psychological stakeholders of today's tanning trend. For those who may be unfamiliar with the context surrounding my study, young adolescents are known to be optimal targets for advertisements on social media. The tanning industry as a whole has re-blossomed in recent years, as the adverse practices have become normalized again through online infuence. In my own personal experience, societal pressures weigh down on youth’s appearance. In a study done by the Canadian Journal of Public Health, Angela M. Thompson, full time surveyor for health related instances, found that 34% of prepubescent girls and 76% of post-pubescent females were unsatisfied with their body. With tanning publicized in various new ways, including new sunless and self tanning measures, there is a larger market than ever targeting the youth of this generation. While appearance based motives are typically associated with females, males are also participants in the tanning conversation. This led my thorough investigation of the question, "How has the rise of sun and sunless tanning impacted young adults' (13-18) attitude towards their appearance and contributed to their beauty standard of others?"

My development of a revised questionnaire, previously done by Seth M. Noar, had been approved by the IRB and I have begun administering my survey. Through an extensive research pitch, I presented my work to a board of experts. This process required additional preparation, preparation that my peers not utilizing human participants did not have to consider.

The feedback I recieved upon presenting my research instilled confidence in my expertise. After applying minimal revisions to my survey, a final draft was ready, so I began the data collection process.

My survey has been administered in several different ways. The most effective method has been the utilization of my teachers here at Rock Canyon. I designed a poster, advertising my survey and the incentive to participate, a generous four volunteer hours.

Data Collection

This has been the best process to motivate students to complete the 50 question form, using their iPhones to simply scan a QR code to begin the questionnaire. However, there were several problems with the simplicity of this process. iPhones, with dozens of notifications competing for the users attention, has made it difficult to acquire participant retention. A noticible trend is the blank submission, surveys that have been left blank by participants and overall auditing the statistics of my data. A measure I implemeted that was overwhelmingly productive was the inability to request volunteer hours wihtout the submission of the survey. This has counteracted many from walking away, or simply clicking off of the form. Another method of advertising is just through friends and family. Electronic administration is a roadblock I was not anticipating, and luckily, my thorough attention to details in the devleopment of my survey was able to make up for defecits I wouldn't have been able to predict.

The younger demographic I was hoping to obtain has been collected from the dance studio I teach at, and they have successfully contributed to my data as well. When asking for their feedback surrounding the experience of completing my survey, I have recieved positive anecdotes, specifically regarding admiration for my structure and professionalism. This was an aspect important to me personally, I wanted to ensure the process was as easy as possible while still collecting complex data. The presence of resources for mental health in my survey were placed to mitigate any unsafe emotions that may trigger from the sensitive topics discussed. However, after speaking to several participants, it does not appear that these themes were as sensitive as anticipated, another positive accomplishment.

Recent Thoughts

Google forms does an excellent job of automatically creating a sheet of all collected data. While I would publish a photo of this tool, my data is not to be disclosed before proper analysis. In total, I have recieved 130 responses so far. Every demographic is represented within my data, something I was truly hoping for when beginning this process. This number allows for a diverse pool of data that will represent itself accurate, considering social media advertisement has not even been implemented yet. As a researcher, this experience has been overhwelmingly positive. Most of this confidence I attribute to the IRB ceritification process and the hard work I placed into the intricacies of the questionaire. My data has remained fascinating, and I have remained beyond up to date on the new information flooding through. I am excited to share my findings as the year continues on.