The Department of Communication Studies and the Public Policy Research Lab created a survey to document students’ experiences during hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
The lab is analyzing the data and will be using the information to present at conventions and publish in journals, said Renee Edwards, Department of Communication Studies chairman. The researchers may also offer a lecture for students to announce the results. The lab will be conducting at least three other hurricane-related surveys in Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
The researchers compiled questions for the survey the week after school resumed following Katrina, and they modified the survey to include Rita, Edwards said.
The research lab sent a broadcast e-mail to students Oct. 13. Edwards said the lab received 2,000 responses, and the partnership will ask the University’s Institutional Review Board for permission to survey more than 3,000 responses, the original maximum response.
“You can see the hurricane in a lot of different ways,” Edwards said. “Different factors have influenced students.”
Edwards said she hopes the research from the survey will give the University a better idea of the obstacles affected students are facing.
“Some students’ families lost their businesses and homes,” Edwards said. “I know students had people in their apartments, which could affect how students do this semester, how they are coping.”
Steve Procopio, manager of the Public Policy Research Lab, a partnership between the E.J. Ourso College of Business and the Manship School of Mass Communication’s Reilly Center for Media & Public Affairs, said the lab will also be conducting three other hurricane-related surveys and extra funding may lead to other surveys.
The first survey will focus on displaced residents from the greater New Orleans. The second survey will involve Baton Rouge residents and how they are handling the hurricane overflow, and the third survey will focus on hurricane-affected businesses in the New Orleans area.
Edwards originally asked Procopio to find out how much a survey would cost, Procopio said. He said he became interested in the project, and the research lab partnered with the Department of Communication Studies to fund and conduct the survey.
The lab took the survey down Tuesday morning, Procopio said. He added that he hopes to have the data ready to release to the public at the end of the week or by Monday.
Contact Leslie Ziober at [email protected]