Overview

Students get a real life lesson in sociology in which they create a hypothesis about the attitudinal differences between generations.

Bridging the generation gap

Lesson plan information

Teacher guide

Objectives

• Students will be introduced to the process of creating a hypothesis and testing its validity.
• Students will become familiar with spreadsheet fundamentals.
• Students will engage in thoughtful discussion about generational differences.

Prerequisite skills

• Basic ability to use Microsoft Office Word or the word processing program in Microsoft Works
• Ability to create a basic Microsoft Office PowerPoint presentation, including inserting clip art
• Ability to create a Microsoft Office Excel worksheet, including sorting and filtering data

How to begin

1. Explain to students that in this lesson they are going to explore the differences between generations.
2. Ask students: Is your attitude about issues in life, such as politics and family values, the same as somebody who is, say, age 50? Do older people and younger people think alike? On what subjects might they feel differently? Is there really such a thing as a "Generation Gap?"
3. Tell students that they are going to find out for themselves. After developing a hypothesis that they believe reflects the differences between generations, students will design and administer a survey to test their hypothesis, and then chart their findings and present the results to their classmates.

For more advanced students:

Have them design the survey form in Excel or Word. They'll work with the Forms toolbar to add form buttons and boxes. For help designing a form in Excel, click the Office Assistant and type "Create a form" in the search field.

Resources and web links

• This site has a good example of a survey form created in Word.

Student activity

Description

In this activity, you will work in teams to write and administer a questionnaire that compares attitudes and opinions about certain issues, based on different variables, such as age, gender, or geographic region. You will then analyze your results using Excel and report your findings using PowerPoint.

Step 1: creating a hypothesis

• Software: None
• What to do
  Create a hypothesis using dependent and independent variables

1. Decide how you think generations may differ in their opinions on a particular topic. Team up with a classmate and choose two topics to study. These will be called "dependent variables" because you are stating that you believe that a person's beliefs about these topics depend on their age. The "independent variable" is what causes the differences in the dependent variables. In this case, the independent variable is the generation to which the person belongs. Choices for topics might include:

• Politics
• TV violence
• Movies
• Religion
• Technology
• Women in the military
• Gun control
• Family values
• Friendship
• Eating habits

2. Decide exactly how you think the dependent variables will differ for the generations. This is your hypothesis. For example, if the topic is "TV violence," the hypothesis might be: "Younger people think TV violence is fun and harmless, but older people think it is dangerous and harmful." If the topic is "Women in the military," the hypothesis might be: "The older a person is, the more he or she will believe that women in the military should not be allowed in combat." If the topic is "Friendship," this might be your hypothesis: "Young people tend to value friends more than family, but older people tend to value family more than friends."

Step 2: creating the survey

• Software: Microsoft Office Word
• What to do
  Create a survey and test it

1. Use Word to create a survey form similar to the one found in the Design a survey using Word article.
   With your partner, create five statements for survey participants to respond to that will accurately test your hypothesis. Statements should be designed to elicit answers like "strongly agree" or "strongly disagree."
2. Assign numerical values for different attitudes toward your statements. For example:

• 5 Strongly agree
• 4 Agree
• 3 Neutral
• 2 Disagree
• 1 Strongly disagree

3. Present your survey statements to the rest of the class and see if:

• The class can guess your hypothesis.
• The statements accurately reflect the hypothesis.

Step 3: administering the survey

• Software: None
• What to do
  Administer the survey in a public place to a specified minimum number of respondents

1. Decide on a minimum number of people to be surveyed.
2. Decide at which public place you will administer the survey (for example, at a mall, inside or outside a grocery store, at a movie theater).
3. Obtain the permission of your parents and the survey site owner before administering their survey.
4. Set up tables in the public place you have chosen.
5. Be sure respondents fill out the entire survey and thank them for taking the time to do so.
6. For each respondent, average the numerical values of their responses to the survey statements and write this "score" on the survey form.

Step 4: analyzing the results

• Software: Microsoft Office Excel
• What to do
  Analyze your survey data

1. Open a new spreadsheet in Excel.
2. Clarify your variables. For example, "Independent Variable: Generation"; "Dependent Variable: Political Beliefs." There should be one column for each dependent variable on your worksheet. When entering data into your worksheet, each response (completed survey) should be put in its own row, and the independent variable should go in the first column.
3. Note how many males/females there are, and what part of the world the respondents were born in. Even if you do not include this information in your analysis, it is important to record it, because these differences may affect your results. Make these the second and third columns.
4. Sort the data based on the generation group. Then, calculate the average score for each dependent variable for each group. Using Excel's filtering features, evaluate the data by showing records that match certain rules, or criteria. For example, show all records of people who were born between 1946 and 1955 from the United States that scored the highest for one of your dependent variables.
5. Create charts that show some trend in your data.

Step 5: presenting the results

• Software: Microsoft Office Excel, Microsoft Office PowerPoint
• What to do
  Create an Excel or PowerPoint presentation to show your team's hypothesis, survey, and results

• Create a presentation to show your team's hypothesis, survey, and results to the class. Your team can:
  Present your ideas on the computer using Excel to show your graphs.
  —or—
  Create a presentation in PowerPoint to demonstrate your hypothesis and findings with graphics, art, animations, and graphs.

This content is reprinted with permission from Microsoft. For additional content, please visit http://www.microsoft.com/education/default.mspx.