Memo on Validity

What I need to know	Why I need to know this	Kind of data that will answer the questions	Analysis plans	Validity threats	Possible strategies for dealing with  validity threats
What religious activities the Newman Center provides students with	If we are want to learn about students’ experiences with religious activities, we should know first of all what activities there are	Public records, Interviewing	Information search and classification transcribing	Incomplete, inaccurate or misleading information might be provided about current religious activities at the Newman center due to the lack of information contained in public records or lack of knowledge among  employees	comparison of the collected data from interviewing with data from public records
Undergraduate students’ experiences of engaging in religious activities at the Newman Center. What they find critical about these experiences.	We know little about undergraduate students’ perceptions of religious activities and roles they play in their lives	Interviewing, Participant observation	video taping, transcribing, coding, comparing coding with other coders, rereading, examining taking observations and video tapes into account	Students might feel as if they were being tested and give the answers they feel that are 'the right ones' Student participation in religious activities might differ from day to day Students' actions might be misinterpreted by the researcher	Conduct one-on-one interviews with students in order to eliminate potential pressure of being afraid of what their peers might think of them and their answers Make sure students understand that there are no 'right' or 'wrong' answers, the researcher would like to know how they feel and what to know about their experiences, even though these experiences might be bad, strange or different from their peers’ experience; and this is fine. long-term observation for more accurate data extensive interviewing and checking with students in order to make sure my interpretations are correct member checking, bringing an outsider to see if he/she would interpret data the same way
How advisors at the Newman Center describe undergraduate students’ experiences with activities/services provided by the Center. What they find critical about these experiences.	If we want to get a better insight into students’ experiences with religious activities, we should look at it from different perspectives	Interviewing	transcribing, coding, comparing coding with other coders, rereading	Advisors may exaggerate the role of religious activities in undergraduate students' lives in order to make their center look better in researcher's or to please their bosses	Triangulation - collecting data from both lower- and higher-level employees, one-on-one interviews, making sure participants understand that interviews are confidential and that no data will be included in the final write-up without their permission to do so. if necessary become an intervener in order to establish rapport and help them understand that if they do not like something about the Newman Center, they can try to change it with the help of this research