A growing number of students at the Brown University Center for Environmental Studies are using qualitative methods in their course work. For my senior thesis, I developed, tested, revised, and evaluated four (4) interactive, hypertextual lessons on "How to Design Survey and Interview Questions," lessons I had created for Environmental Studies students working on qualitative social research projects. My thesis relies on the assumption that qualitative research methods can be an effective, insightful vehicle for students who wish to examine people's environmental attitudes and behavior.

In my research, I first identified a number of questions that Environmental Studies students grapple with when they try use qualitative research methods. I did this by observing and interviewing ES students doing social research projects through the Brown University ES department, as well as by reading key social research texts and talking with the department's social research professor, Christina Zarcadoolas.

Once I had a sense of the questions students were asking, I designed a hypertextual educational tool. This tool -- The Social Research Toolbox -- would introduce students to social research skills that are frequently applied to environmental issues. Over the summer of 1995, I created one section of the Toolbox, the 4 lessons on "How to Design Survey and Interview Questions" (the SIQ Lessons). These Lessons focus on common issues and obstacles that students face while designing protocols about environmental issues.

To test and evaluate the SIQ Lessons, I used a number of qualitative methods, including observations, interviews and follow-up survey questions. Specifically, I conducted a set of study tests with undergraduate students enrolled in an ES course on public perception research, ES 126. These study tests enabled me to the better understand how students used the lessons, what they thought was effective about the lessons, what they thought was missing, and how an interactive, hypertextual presentation might have influenced their perceptions of the lessons' content. My study test findings, coupled with my secondary research on hypertextual writing, helped me revise the Lessons.