It is amazing how many strange looks you get when you go walking around in Cambridge, England asking people about their religious/spiritual leanings! Although once they know you're a student, things tend to run much more smoothly.
Last Wednesday, my Global Religion class got to experience the joys of random surveying on the streets of Cambridge in order to discover what an ineffective way to learn things surveying truly is. One group only got 9 people to talk to them. My group got 55. I think it may have helped that my group split in half so that the far less intimidating number of three people would approach interviewees as opposed to the rather frightening six that the other group had to deal with. My group managed to get pretty good data but we got a much larger spread. However, by the same token, a larger spread does not translate into good survey data. Even a the hypothetical perfect, mandatory survey of everyone has its flaws. Just look at the 2001 English Census. Because no survey can be perfect and it is impossible to get good lab data as Sociologists of Theology study people, it is really difficult to get good data on people and their religious tendencies. So that was a fun lesson to learn by walking around for an hour (sarcasm hand not raised).
We actually got to talk to some really interesting people. If you're interested in the raw data and my weird notes on the experiment here is my spread sheet (with Pie Charts!):
If you have any questions feel free to bring them up in the comments!
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