ARE FEMALE DRIVERS “CONSIDERED SAFER” THAN MALE DRIVERS?
...ould give us more home base evidence and insight as to what people have experienced and of their personal opinion. The questionnaire can be related to these journal articles to a certain degree. First of all, personal questions such as, Name, is of little relevance. However it is very important to know the gender. It would be pointless to conduct this research if the gender was unknown. When relating to the articles, it is clear that they too have had to determine the individuals’ gender to enable then to conduct their research effectively. Document 2 had to determine the gender of the applicants in order for them to achieve their findings related to aggression. In this study, the applicants were asked to state which gender type they felt more at ease when driving and stating their opinion as to why they thought this. Further more, whether their reason was based on personal experience or on a more general level. This can be related to document 4 on the behavioural study of male and female drivers. Their findings showed that morality salience led to higher intentions to drive recklessly than the control condition only among men who perceived driving as relevant to their self-esteem. No such differences were found among women. 2) Proposed methods 2.1) The participants Considering that the research was conducted in a way that we wanted to gather information on a home base level, thus in Edinburgh, the questionnaire was handed out to 12 applicants, 6 male and 6 female. These applicants are presumably of Scottish heritage who live in Edinburgh. These applicants were recruited on a random selection basis on the streets of Edinburgh. Moreover, the aim was for all applicants to have a driving licence so that we could get maximum results for the research. 2.2) Description and evaluation of Materials used The materials used for this research are based on electronic findings like the journal articles. These were obtained from Napier University, Merchiston, Edinburgh. These findings have been studied on a more global level. It was difficult to find studies that were of our particular topic; i.e. based in Edinburgh. We also made use of books to retrieve information but found them unreliable. There fore it has of little relevance to mention these as no information was obtained from them. The most important material used in this research is the questionnaire. It was important to know that the applicants actually came from Edinburgh (Q4). Also finding out if they had a driving licence (Q5) was vital. It must be mentioned that before the questionnaire, each individual was asked if they had a driving licence. This was done to save time during the research. Stating that they had one was necessary for evidence. The duration of their licence is also important to measure the incurred incidences/ accidents (Q9) against the period of possessing the licence to find out if these where more occurred by males or females (Q11). This would give us insight to which gender was more frequently involved in an accident/incident. Besides, these questions would give us more knowledge to out research question “are females’ safer drivers than males”? However, those questions alone would not be sufficient enough information for us to start making conclusions. Question 13 asks the participant to give their opinion on female drivers. This gives us a broader insight to our research question helping us to determine the overall conclusion. It is interesting to find out what people think of their own sex as drivers and the opposite sex as drivers, and their reasons for deciding so. 2.3) Procedures >Designing the questionnaire to provide effective results to the research question i.e. are female drivers safer than male drivers?!! >selecting an appropriate group of subjects to carry out the research; >Collecting the data received and transforming it into information i.e. relating it to the research question. The data is the questions and the information is what we gather from the answers; >Processing the information for further manipulation i.e. using it for comparison to other journal articles, and discussing it with educated bodies, i.e. psychologists, scientologists. Additionally, the information can be used on Microsoft database. For example> we can set up the information into fields of relevance: Field Field Field Name Data type size NAME TEXT 15 SURANME TEXT 10 GENDER YES/NO MALE, FEMALE TOWN TEXT 10 DRIVING LICIENCE YES/NO DISPLAY CONTROL AT EASE WITH YES/NO MALE, FEMALE As you can see the questionnaire can be imputed as data and then processed to form information. With this Microsoft package you can manipulate the data into queries. This means that if you wanted to find out how many people thought that female drivers were better than male drivers you would select the required fields and create a query. If two or more tables were required to be linked to other tables, you would select a particular name field as the primary key, and then you would run the query. The query will produce a list of the entire applicants who think that female drivers are safer than males. It is a very efficient way of manipulating the data to retrieve information that is desired. After the queries have been accomplished they can be further analysed. It also gives a visual outlook at what the data is representing. This means that it is much more efficient to see information when it is together rather than looking at two or more different sources of information. If required, it is also possible to put the information into a graph to gain more insight as to what the information is representing. This can be done using a number of programs but the recommended program is by using Microsoft excel. This can easily be done using a simple copy and paste technique. 2.4) Results These are the results of what we found after our questionnaire. 6 out of 6 males preferred the driver to be male; 4 out of 6 females preferred the driver to also be male. This statistics can be based upon the fact that most applicants though that women were in less control of the vehicle. It can be said that most of the applicant preferred a male driver. >4 out of 6 females and 2 out 6 males considered the female to be more careful, more safety cautious but less in control of the vehicle. TOTAL=6/12 >1 out of 6 females and 3 out of 6 males stated the females are less careful, less safety conscious and less in control of the vehicle. TOTAL=4/12 >1 female out of 6 stated females were more careful, more safety cautious and more in control of the vehicle. TOTAL= 1/12 >1 male out of 6 males stated females were more careful, less safety cautious and less in control of the vehicle. TOTAL= 1/12 2.5) Conclusion 7 of our applicant thought that most of the females were safer drivers than males. In this research it ca...