Actual Cancer Awareness in College Students and its Correlation to Cancer Awareness Education Programs
This fieldwork topic is about cancer awareness, and whether or not people’s awareness of cancer-related programs correlate with the person’s actual awareness. I already know a fair amount of information about this topic as it is also related to the subject of my inquiry essay. I am aware of general cancer statistics, as well as how many people are affected by cancer in the United States, and this fieldwork project will be very useful in helping me understand how many people are actually aware of the dangers of cancer. I still want to know more about my topic, specifically in regards to what programs are out there, and which ones have been most beneficial to the communities’ awareness. I have been affected by cancer greatly over the course of my life; between losing grandparents to cancer and watching friends experience it, it has always been around me. I know a lot of people who are not really aware of how much cancer affects people, so looking to see the actual statistics involved and which programs create most of the awareness will be extremely interesting to me.
For this project, I will be assuming that a lot of people will be aware of the cancer related programs; however, I feel that despite this general awareness, people will still be missing the actual knowledge about how dangerous cancer is. I assume that the results will show that a lot of people recognize that cancer is dangerous, but not many of them will be able to truly be considered ‘aware’ of the real dangers. Since cancer is such a widespread disease, I believe that this will affect anyone in the world; however, for our survey, we will be looking at college students in Virginia Tech. The current college students were one of the first generations to actually begin gaining cancer awareness, and not many generations before them were aware of the dangers. Because of that, we want to look at that specific age group to see how much they naturally know. It seems that most people are diagnosed with cancer when they are older, or after college, so we want to see how aware people are of cancer at the age before they are likely to get it. We will be looking at males and females, approximately ages 17-24, who are students at Virginia Tech. We will not be looking at specific cultures or ethnicity.
If I were to place myself in an identity groups, I would say I am an American Caucasian 18-year-old female, able-bodied. I could be placed in a group for private school children, as I have been in a private school for my whole life before coming to Virginia Tech. I could be classified from the Northern Virginia area. I can be classified by the fact that I work multiple jobs while attending school and that I am double majoring in Psychology and Human Development on a Pre-Med tract, which is a ‘marginalized’ culture. There are several other classifications that I could also be placed under, if needed.
For this project, our group will be looking at the dominant culture in that we are not looking for anything specific other than age and student-status. We are not quite looking at a ‘marginalized’ culture, except the fact that we will be focusing only on Virginia Tech students. I can be placed in the ‘dominant’ culture because I not considered a minority and for the most part, I am similar to the general description of a lot of people in the United States. I am ‘marginalized’ in that I have been in a private school for my whole life. I am from Northern Virginia, and my major/school goal could be considered a ‘marginalized’ culture, as well as the fact that I am a working student.
While we are interviewing and surveying people, we must keep several things in mind. We must make sure that none of the questions are ‘leading questions’ in that they force the survey-taker/interviewee to give a specific answer simply because that is what we want. We also must make sure that they surveys can give us enough information to make sure that we are able to accurately show our findings. For the interviews, we have to make sure that we act as good listeners and make sure that the interviewees are comfortable in giving information to us. We have to coordinate these interviews and get in contact with those that we interview, and the same goes for the surveys. We have to make sure that all our questions are not offensive and well thought out.
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