Weaknesses: One weakness would be the non-response bias and response bias. Some students were unable to answer the survey because they did not have normal schedules and we were unable to reach them. This reduced the sample size.Even though students were told to remove the sticky note with their name, do to the nature of the questions, some students may have been uncomforatable anwsering honestly or turning in the survey, this may have affectted how accurate the results were. Another weakness would be the potential extraneous factor of grade level. We think that the length of time a student was in high school may have affected their response. This was not accounted for in our survey.
Extrapolation: We would not be comfortable extrapolating the data beyond North Olmsted High School. The sample only included NOHS students. The responses by NOHS students may have been affected by certain characteristics unique to the area such as, geography, socioeconomic factors, and the school system. Different school districts may handle cheating differnetly so students in other areas may be more or less likely to cheat. The factors affecing NOrth Olmsted are to limiting to etrapolate are results.
Suggestions: Further studies would be necessary to come expand improve the results. A suggestion is to conduct a similar study but block by grade level, this would control for the extraneous factor of grade level. It would also be a good idea to expand the sample to other school districts to get a larger sample and control for any other extraneous factors. If a study was conducted through out the state or even the country the results would be more reliable and extrapolation would be possilble.
