Major Project

EdPsy 387

 

„Survey of U of I Student’s knowledge about Austria“

 

Christina Schachinger

 

 

I have chosen this topic for my major project because I wanted to create a small information homepage about Austria. I believe that the knowledge of U of I students about Austria can be improved. To proof the lack of knowledge I created a questionaire to undertake a survey (see Appendix A). I also put the URL of the information homepage about Austria I’ve created on this questionaire, so that the students were able to look up the correct answers and furthermore to provide them with some additional links for deepening their knowledge. Therefore I see the main purpose of this webpage in setting right some common misconductions about Austria. Additionally it should have the function of an educational site at the same time.

 

To summarize my goals for creating this small information homepage are as follows:

 

I interviewed 57 students, majoring in all different kind of fields like accounting, advertising, broadcast journalism, computer science, economics, english, finance, marketing, media studies, management information systems, psycology and speech communication. Over 50 % of the questioned students where Juniors, 14 % Sophomores, about 30 % Seniors and 3,5 % graduate students. Their state of origin is mainly Illinois.

 

Now, I would like to go into detail concerning the results of this survey.

 

In the first question students were asked to mark the boarders of Austria in a map of Europe. The graph below shows, that less than one third of the questioned students were able to mark the boarders of Austria.

 

 

It seems it is difficult for the students to identify Austria on the map, but they do know, that Vienna is the capital of Austria as the next graph shows.

 

 

I would interpret this result in that way, that in schools it is talked about European countries a lot, but the use of maps seems to be neglected.

 

Question 3 dealt with the amount of inhabitants of Austria. About 50 % thought that the amount would range between 10,000,001 – and 15,000,000. Austria has about 8,000,000 inhabitants. About 40 % ticked the correct interval. Concerning Question 4, 77 % were sure, that German is spoken in Austria. Furthermore about 10 % thought Hungarian and about 8 % thought English is the language spoken in Austria.

 

The following graph shows the result of Question 5, which dealt with identifying some neigbor countries of Austria. 8 of 57 students were able to name all correct ones, Italy, Switzerland, Hungary and Germany. Almost every student was sure, that Germany is a neighbor country. 35 of the questioned students believed that Poland is a neighbor country. 5 of them marked the boarders of Austria under question 1 correctly, but they were not able to indentify all neighbor countries.

 

 

Question 6 asked for the river flowing through the Austrian capital. The barchart underneath shows that the students had to make more or less a guess, however, one third of the students chose Danube as the correct answer.

 

Almost 80 % ticked the Alps as the correct answer for Question 7 which asked for the mountains which are going through the western part of Austria. This result shows, that the Alps are connected with the Austrian image.

 

Question 8 dealt with the current Austrian currency. The pie chart illustrates that 45 % of the questioned students ticked the Austrian Mark. 23 % have chosen the correct answer, the Austrian Schilling.

 

 

In Question 9 students were asked if the currency would be the same in one year from now. About 60 % answered the question with no, 40 % with yes. 80 % of the people who answered with no were able to name the new currency, the EURO. 20 % knew that the currency will change but weren’t able to name the new one.

 

Question 10 asked for ticking yes or no concerning a membership of the European Community of Austria. This is the result:

 

 

59 % of the students knew that Austria is a member of the European Community as well as that the EURO will be introduced next year. 25 % knew that Austria is a member of the EC but they didn’t know that the EURO would be invented in the following year. 18 % thought that Austria isn’t a member of the EC as well as they believed that the currency would be the same in one year from now.

 

Question 11 requested the famous ancient musicien who was born in Salzburg/Austria. The chart shows that all musiciens were known but the questioned students were not sure who of them was born in Salzburg. 35 % ticked the correct answer, Mozart. This result shows, that Mozart is not linked to Salzburg as strong as sometimes assumed.

 

In Question 12 students were asked to tick the musicien, who is/was Austrian.

 

 

About 56 % of the students were right in ticking Falco. Eros Ramazotti was chosen by about 32 %, who is in fact Italian.

 

In Question 13 students were asked to find out who of the named celebrities was born in Austria. About 90 % of the questioned students knew that Arnold Schwarzenegger was born in Austria.

 

The barchart below explains the results for Question 14, which was concerned with a famous Austrian athlete. About 50 % of the questioned students knew that Herman Maier, a famous skier, is Austrian. Boris Becker, a former tennis star and Michael Schumacher, a Formula I race pilot are both German.

This last chart shows how many of the questioned students already had the possibility to visit Europe.

 

3 of students who have been to Europe visited Austria during their trip.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Appendix A

 

Questionaire

 

 

Demographics

 

Gender                  c female      c male                           Major:                                              

 

                                                                                          c Undergraduate

State of origin:                                                                        c Freshman          c Junior

                                             No abbreviations please!                                      c Sophomore        c Senior

 
 

Age                                                                                   

                                                                                          c Graduate

 

 

Questions

 

1. Please mark the borders of Austria in the map underneath in color!

 

2. What is the capital of Austria? (Tick the correct answer)

 

c London                 c Berlin                    c Budapest              c Vienna

 

3.How many inhabitants does Austria have? (Tick the correct answer)

 

c 1 – 5,000,000                                        c 15,000,001 – 20,000,000

c 5,000,001 – 10,000,000                        c 20,000,0001 – 25,000,000

 

4. What language is spoken in Austria? (Tick the correct answer)

 

c Swedish                c English                 c German                c Hungarian

 

5. Which of the following countries are some neighbour countries of Austria? (Tick the 4 correct ones)

 

c France                  c Switzerland           c Germany

c Italy                      c Spain                    c Poland

c Great Britain         c Hungary                c Greece

 

6. Which river flows through the capital of Austria? (Tick the correct answer)

 

c Danube                c Rhone                  c River Themse        c Seine

 

7. How is the mountain range called which goes through the western part of Austria?

(Tick the correct answer)

 

c Blue Mountains     c Alps                      c Andes                   c Pyrenäen

 

8. What is the current Austrian currency? (Tick the correct answer)

 

c Austrian Schilling  c Austrian Mark        c Austrian Lira         c Austrian Kronen

 

9. Will the currency be the same in one year from now? (Tick the correct anwer)

 

c Yes                       c No  What instead?                                                        

 

10. Is Austria a member of the European Union? (Tick the correct answer)

 

c Yes                       c No

 

11. What famous ancient musician was born in Salzburg/Austria? (Tick the correct answer)

 

c Haydn                   c Beethoven            c Bach                     c Mozart

 

12. Who of the following musiciens is/was Austrian?

 

c Falco                    c Elton John            c Eros Ramazotti     c Frank Sinatra

 

13. Who of the following celebrities was born in Austria? (Tick the correct answer)

 

c Gene Hackman                                      c Tom Cruise

c Arnold Schwarzenegger                         c Tom Sellek

 

14. Who of the following athlete is Austrian? (Tick the correct answer)

 

c Boris Becker         c Tiger Woods         c Hermann Maier     c Michael Schumacher

 

15. Have you already been to Europe?

 

c No                        c Yes, where?                                                                                            

                                                When?                                                                                          

                                                Duration?                                                                                      

Thank you!

To view the correct answers go to http://www.students.uiuc.edu/~schachin/index.htm