Middletown Community Foundation Proposal


The Middletown Community Foundation is a private source of funding for special projects that maintain and enhance the quality of life within the Greater Middletown Area. In order to most effectively meet local needs, the Foundation must identify needs, analyze various ways of meeting those needs, and ultimately, establish a fair and prudent funding policy. Following a recent meeting with the Middletown Community Foundation Long-Range Planning Committee, it is proposed that information from the following sources be used to establish funding priorities:

The three sources of information and related methodological procedures are discussed below. It is important to emphasize that all of the interviews and surveys will be carried out with the appropriate assurances of confidentiality and anonymity. The data will be collected and coded so that the responses of specific participants in the project can not be identified. Participation in the research will be completely voluntary, and respondents can withdraw from the survey and interviews at any time.

Key Informants and Community Leaders: In order to guarantee the success of the research, we propose to collect survey data, hold focus group discussions, and conduct personal interviews with key informants and community leaders from pertinent groups. Based on preliminary discussions with members of the Planning Committee, it is proposed that the following groups be considered for inclusion in the focus group discussions and/or survey sample:

In addition to the above groups, it is recommended that focus group information and survey data be obtained from area high school youth in order to ascertain the concerns of this important segment of the population. In reference to all of the above groups, it is estimated that 12 to 15 focus group discussions will be conducted.

A short survey will be administered prior to the focus group discussion. Following the group discussions, the survey will be repeated in order to determine the changes that resulted from the interaction of group participants. Data will be coded so that the responses of each group can be determined.

Key informants and community leaders who are unable to participate in the focus group discussions will be contacted through a mail survey or a telephone interview. This will help to guarantee that all groups are adequately represented in the final report.

General Population: As requested by the Middletown Community Foundation Planning Committee, one part of the project will involve surveying members of the general population. It is proposed that this be done in one or both of the following ways:

  1. A nonprobability sample of respondents from the general population will be asked to complete a short survey that is inserted in area newspapers.
  2. An opinion-line, capable of accommodating a one minute message, will be established at the Applied Research Center. The general population will be informed about the purpose of the line through area newspapers, local radio stations, and other sources and instructed to record their recommendations. When appropriate, we will also conduct personal interviews with selected members of the general population.

Secondary Data Analysis: The analysis will also consider the findings from three recent studies of Middletown, Monroe, and the Middletown City School System. Two of the studies were based on samples of registered voters and the other on members of the general population. Approximately 1,500 people were surveyed during the studies (Seufert and Newton, 1994; Seufert and Newton, 1995; Seufert, 1995).

The following sections of the proposal discuss the methodological procedures related to conducting the surveys and focus group discussions involving key informants and community leaders, and the nonprobability survey of the general population.

Focus Group: Focus group research is a qualitative research technique which is particularly beneficial where the purpose of the research is not to quantify, but rather to discover perceptions. Focus groups represent a form of in-depth informal interviews in which members of a discussion group interact and encourage one another in an exchange of ideas which is hard to attain through individual interviews. The dynamics of the discussion process encourage participants to stimulate each other in an exchange of ideas that may raise points that would not ordinarily emerge (Morgan and Spanish, 1984). Focus groups are especially beneficial in conducting community research (Buttram, 1990; Schearer, 1981). In addition, it is an appropriate methodology for addressing issues in an objective setting which encourages openness and disclosure (Folch-Lyon and Trost, 1981; Kreuger, 1988).

Questionnaire Development: Questions to be used in the survey and focus group discussions will be derived from topics covered in the Middletown Community Foundation Long-Range Planning Survey report (Seufert, 1988), issues raised during preliminary discussions with the Long-Range Planning Committee, and from a review of related quality of life research. The objective of the proposed research is to collect data from Greater Middletown Area community leaders and community residents that will guide Long-Range Planning Committee decisions regarding funding special projects during the upcoming funding cycle. The final set of question will be approved by the Planning Committee prior to beginning the research.

It is important to note that the survey and focus group instruments will contain a common core of questions that will be asked of all participants in the research. Data from the common questions will enable us to compare the perception of the diverse groups who participate in the survey and focus group discussions.

Interviewer Selection And Training: A select group of interviewers will be trained at the Applied Research Center, Miami University Middletown. If mail surveys or telephone interviews are employed in any part of the study, the research will be completed from the same location. In the case of telephone interviews, interviewer training and subsequent interviewing will be structured so that each interviewer receives feedback regarding consistency, completeness of entries and other quality indicators.

Data Analysis: The focus group discussions and survey results will yield both qualitative and quantitative information. Consequently, findings from the research will be analyzed by integrating both qualitative and quantitative methods (Blalock, 1979; Felding and Lee, 1991; Miles and Huberman, 1984).

Quantitative data from the surveys will first be analyzed using descriptive statistics and appropriate measures of association. The measures of association are statistics which summarize the systematic way any difference in the distribution of one variable is associated with the distribution differences in a second variable (i.e., how strongly two variables are related to each other). Interpretations based upon the descriptive analysis, when statistically appropriate, will be checked and extended through the use of other suitable statistical procedures such as multiple regression. Given the interests of the Long-Range Planning Committee, easy to interpret charts and tables will be incorporated into the final monograph. The combined qualitative and quantitative information from all stages of the research will form the basis for establishing Middletown Community Foundation funding priorities.

Summary: The final research report will contain recommendations on funding priorities established through our contacts with key informants and community leaders, members of the general population, and other key groups such as youth. As noted above, the recommendations will also be examined in relationship to community needs and priorities as defined in recent research involving samples of registered voters and a sample from the general population. The final report will include the following sections:


Comments to:
Teresa D. Newton, Project Assistant
tdnewton@miavx3.mid.muohio.edu

Last Updated: Thursday, April 20, 1995