Klaud Tchokogueu

Independent Research G/T

Ms. Kucik
3 April 2017
Primary Research Analysis
Methods:
Participants:
Participants were originally selected by a random sample of teachers at Reservoir High school.
Letters were sent to teachers asking them to fill out the survey. Most of the participants attend
Reservoir High school but due to a low number of responses adults outside of the school were
also asked to take the survey.
Materials:
Since I decided to conduct a survey, I did not really require that many materials for this
project. For the survey, I first needed to look at examples of Howard County surveys so that my
questions could be accurate and understandable. I used a notepad to write down key points and
facts. I created a list of open-ended and close ended questions that could potentially support my
hypothesis. I then transferred those questions into an online document. Secondly, I had to write a
letter to Mr. Saunderson, the Reservoir High School Principal, asking him for permission to
distribute my survey. Then, I digitally sent the survey to Ms. Kucik, the G/T Independent
Research teacher, so she can send them to teachers. After receiving back survey responses, I put
the data in an Excel spreadsheet on word to analyze my data.
Procedure:
The process of conducting my survey was overall very smooth and organized. I first
decided to create 24 questions that can be used as evidence to help back up my hypothesis. After
these questions were revised by Ms.Kucik, I put them in a survey format. Then, I sent a letter
along with my survey to Mr.Saunderson to ask for his permission to distribute my survey to
teachers. He then approved my survey and it was ready to be dispersed. Enough surveys were
given out to receive 53 responses and to be able to appropriately analyze my data. Putting the
data in an Excel spreadsheet makes it easier to compare the data and find relationships between
variables so that I can eventually come to a conclusion about my hypothesis.
Results:
Question #1: What is your sex?
In the survey, 76.9% of respondents were female, while only 23.1% were males. There was a big
gap between the two percentages, but since there were more females respondents that couldve
impacted the results. This could also mean that gender is an important factor in fraud
vulnerability.
Question #2: What is your ethnicity?
As showed in the graph below, 61.5% of respondents were Whites, 32.7% were Black/African
American, 1.9% were Asian and 3.8% were 2 or more races. The results of this question couldve
also been altered by the different types of races at the school who took the survey.
Question #3: What is your age range?
In the age of initial occurrence, the age of range with the most percentage was 36-55 with 67.3%,
then came 20-35 with 21.2%, people between the ages ranges of 56-75 had 9.6%. Only 1.9% of
respondents were under 20 and there were no respondents over 75 years old. This could be
evidence for a research study I read composed by the FINRA which stated that victims over the
age of 55 were more vulnerable to fraud. However, this could be because, the minimum age of
retirement is 62, meaning it would be rare to have respondents from the school to be over that
age.
Question #4: I own a credit card, or have owned a credit card in the past, including major credit
cards, such as a MasterCard or Visa, and store credit cards, such as a Macy's card.
The options for this statement were strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree and strongly disagree.
The results show that 95.8% of respondents strongly agreed with the statement and strongly
disagreed 2.1%, and 2.1% agreed. This supports my hypothesis and proves that almost all
respondents owned a credit card, making them more vulnerable for fraudsters to steal their
personal information.
Question #7: Someone without my permission, has used or attempted to use my credit card
account to purchase items.
Question #8: Someone has used or attempted to use my credit card information to pay off a debt.
Question #9: Someone attempted to use my personal information for a fraudulent purpose, such
as getting medical care, getting a job, or collecting government benefits or tax refunds
In questions 7, 8 and 9 more respondents answered that someone hacked or used their credit
card. When analyzing and comparing the data, I realized that the respondents of those questions
were the ones who answered strongly agree to own a credit card. This could mean that people,
mostly females with credit cards are more likely to get their credit card hacked or misused.
Question #20: I am aware of the crime wire fraud.
Question #21: I have been a victim of fraud.
Both of these questions support my hypothesis. In my hypothesis I claimed that the more
knowledgeable a person is about wire fraud, the less vulnerable they will be to fraudsters. In
question #20, 54.3% respondents responded strongly agree to being aware of wire fraud, 26.5%
answered to agree, 10.9% to strongly disagree and 8.7% responded to disagree. For question #21,
64.6% of respondents strongly disagreed with the statement. 25% of those respondents disagreed
with the statement, 2.1% agreed, 4.2% were neutral and 4.2% strongly agreed. The results from
both data support my argument because it shows that people who strongly agreed to being aware
of wire fraud are also to less likely to be a victim.
Discussion: After analyzing my survey results, I found that my hypothesis was supported but not
as much as I thought it would. My hypothesis stated that individual awareness and education on
wire fraud has an inverse effect on their occurrence. The results show that two variables of
individual awareness and prevention had a positive correlation. The results indicate that many
people are aware of the crime of wire fraud and are knowledgeable of the ways it can be
mitigated. It also indicates that majority of the teachers in the school own a credit card and as a
result of this most are attacked by desperate fraudsters. Although, the results couldve been
altered because of gender, age, and by the reason of incompleteness of surveys taken by
respondents.