Where The Love Is, Inc. Qualitative and Quantitative Research Report

Locality Public Relations

By: Joe Bertolami, Jack Quarantano, Danae Braega, Tatiana Espinoza

​​​Executive Summary:

Our client, Where The Love Is, is a non-profit animal rescue group in Hamden, CT. The goal of the qualitative study was to see how students felt about animals and how they can impact their daily lives. We set out to interpret this through the research question, “What are college students’ experiences with programs that promote spending time with animals? By doing this, we could see if students felt as though getting more animals on the Quinnipiac campus was worthwhile.

After our qualitative research was done, it set the stage for the survey project. To collect quantitative data, we interpreted the relationship between spending time with animals and stress level, two variables we found to be present in our interview responses during the qualitative study. Through our research question, “What is the relationship between spending time with animals and stress level?”, we set out to link the two different concepts together. College students are a group that is typically not likely to adopt from an animal shelter such as Where The Love Is, due to its high cost and other factors (“Where the Love Is.” www.wheretheloveis.org/.). However, there is still a way to connect our client to this college-age audience, as our group observed the affection students around campus display whenever a dog or a cat is seen at Quinnipiac.

There were a variety of different questions asked participants in our survey. It was comprised of mainly multiple-choice and yes/no questions, but also some included open-ended questions. By gathering this data, we were able to infer whether or not there was a relationship between the concepts of spending time with animals and stress levels.

Background Research:

We first started background research by researching our clients. Where the Love Is, Inc. is a group of volunteers who take animals from high-kill shelters, give them whatever medical care is required, bring their vaccines up to date, get them spayed/neutered, and find them loving forever homes (“Get to Know Where the Love Is, Inc.” Petfinder). This passionate group of animal enthusiasts started their organization in 2011 as a way to rescue, foster, and adopt dogs and cats to loving families. Choosing the name Where the Love Is, Inc to demonstrate the passion and love they have for this service, they have saved over 600 animals since emerging, and continue that type of work and service every day. They work directly with Petfinder, which is an online, searchable database of animals who need homes. With this partnership, the adoption process is much more accessible, using the internet to increase awareness of these high-quality animals, as well as the overall effectiveness of pet adoption. All animals are examined by a veterinarian and given any treatment that they may require (“Celebrating Over 20 Years of Pet Adoption.” Petfinder).

The organization is interactive, having put on events that connect them to the community of Hamden. Back in October of 2017, we found that Where The Love Is held an event called “Fall Fest” in Hamden. It was certainly a family-friendly environment, with “over 70 vendors, food trucks, cupcakes, kettle corn, pumpkin painting, photo booth, games, pony rides, bounce house, fire truck, Police K9 demo, 30ft blow-up obstacle course, dog adoptions, raffles, and costume contests for dog/children with awesome prizes!” (“Where The Love Is Fall Festival.” Hamden, CT Patch) We are using this research to see if there are more ways we can link them to our target audience of college students. By finding the relationship between stress and spending time with animals, we can potentially find the need for getting animals on the Quinnipiac campus more frequently, to help deal with stress.

Another aspect of our research was analyzing our target audience of college students. While it is unlikely for college students to purchase a pet due to its high cost and responsibility, there are definitely still ways they can connect with Where The Love Is, and our research set out to prove that. But, before we conducted both qualitative and quantitative research, there was some background research on the college-aged demographic that helped inspire some of the questions in our interview script. For example, According to a 2008 mental health study by the Associated Press, eight in 10 college students say they have sometimes or frequently experienced stress in their daily lives over the past three months. This is an increase of 20% from a survey five years ago (College Students. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.stress.org/college-students). This stress comes in a variety, of ways, including academic pressure, homesickness, and roommate issues. So, with this abundant number of students in college around the country feeling distressed, we wanted to see if and how it applies to Quinnipiac. Not only this, but we also wanted to see if there was a way Where The Love Is could help, as animals can act as a great stress reliever. This was also found in our background research, as AnimalSmart.org found that playing with or petting an animal can increase levels of the stress-reducing hormone oxytocin and decrease the production of the stress hormone cortisol (Dogs help humans reduce stress. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://animalsmart.org/species/dogs/dogs-help-reduce-stress). With the research done on Where The Love Is, as well as college students and stress, we set out to uncover some very relevant information that can help the organization in a variety of ways.

Qualitative Method and Findings:

As was mentioned in the Executive Summary, our qualitative research and analysis for Where The Love Is were centered around the overarching research question of “What are college students’ experiences with programs that promote spending time with animals?

The method we used to conduct our research to answer this question was done by holding interviews with college students. At this time, our group was comprised of five members, so we had each member hold two interviews each, for a total of 10 interviews. The interviews were all at least 20 minutes long, with some going over by one or two minutes. All took place in person, being audio recorded, and then transcribed using a template in Microsoft Word. The script was made up of 13 questions, focusing on their experience and the impact of interacting with animals. Our sampling strategy consisted of non-probability purposive sampling techniques, which aided us in the acquisition of our data. Non-probability sampling is not based on random selection (Non-Probability Sampling, explorable.com). Purposive sampling is sampling based on characteristics of a population and the objective of the study, which is what we needed to use to decide the types of students we were looking for (“What You Need to Understand About Purposive Sampling.” ThoughtCo). So, the type of student we wanted to hear from had some level of experience when it comes to animals, mainly by owning a pet at one point in their lives. In order to conduct this research, a recruitment message is what was first sent out to participants (Appendix 1). Once people responded to this and agreed to be a part of the study, they had to fill out a consent form (Appendix 2). After these two steps were completed, the interviews were held, as we read the questions from our interview script (Appendix 3).

Overall, the results were very similar across our interviews. We broke down our findings into three themes. The first theme in our results was that all of our interviewees were pro-emotional support animals. This was present in all of the interviews that were conducted, and there are quotes to back it up. For example, when asked if he/she had any experiences with emotional support animals, Participant D said, “I have, and it definitely was beneficial to my mental health. I lay there with the dog for about 45 minutes, and it was just calming to pet the dog. Their fur is just so soft, which helps a lot with relieving stress.” The next theme we discovered in our qualitative research was that many of our participants wanted more programs on campus promoting animals. An example of this comes from Participant B, who said “I think we need more clubs about emotional support animals, maybe field trips to the puppy place. I don’t see any animals on campus. I haven’t heard much about different clubs. But, they should promote themselves more and get the Quinnipiac student body involved with animals.” The third and final theme found in the interviews was Quinnipiac students feeling as though finals week is the most important time for there to be programs promoting animals. Participant E stated “It would be very good for Quinnipiac to bring dogs on campus during finals week because everyone is always so stressed.” Being in finals week ourselves, we can totally see where this student is coming from, as everyone is very on edge. Seeing a cute, friendly animal could definitely help with these high-stress levels that students face at this time of the year. All of these themes and findings helped pave the way for questions we drafted for our survey.

Survey Method and Findings:

The research question we focused on for the survey project was “What is the relationship between spending time with animals and stress level?” We chose this question to examine the relationship between two variables that we found to be present in our qualitative research, the variables being spending time with animals, and stress level. To conduct this Survey Project, we conducted a cross-sectional online survey to attain quantitative data. We anticipated the survey to take roughly 5-10 minutes but may have been shorter depending on the person. We used a non-probability way of sampling that allowed us to ensure that our sample size was strictly college students, as that is the group we are studying. We reached 103 respondents with our survey. The survey participants helped in representing the opinion on how animals can relate to the stress level of college students.

In order to conduct this research, we first had to send out a recruitment message to students in order to get enough participants in our survey (Appendix 4). We sent the message to the Quinnipiac class Facebook groups. Once the message was sent out, a consent form had to be filled out (Appendix 5). After this was filled out, students could take the survey through google forms (Appendix 6).

After collecting the data from our survey, we ran a series of different tests by using the SPS database in Citrix. First, a chi-square test was run. For this test, we looked at the relationship between two ordinal variables, which we named “support” and “animal.” “Support” looked at whether or not students felt Quinnipiac offered enough support to students suffering from stress, while “animal” looked at whether or not students had any experience seeing emotional support animals on the Quinnipiac campus. This study found that there is a statistically non-significant association between students who have/have not seen emotional support animals on campus, and whether they do or do not feel that the university offers support to stressed individuals, χ2(1) = 1.560, p = .816.

The next test we ran was a t-test, which looked at the difference in mean score across two groups. The yes/no question that split the sample was “Did you grow up having owned pets?” Group 1 were the people who grew up having owned pets, while group 2 did not grow up having owned pets. There was a significant difference in the response to the question, “Now, on a scale of 1-5, how stressed out would you say you are on a daily basis?,” when coded into categories “yes” and “no” ( t(101)= 2.016, p = 0.047), with students having owned pets (M = 3.6, SD = .95 feeling more stressed than those who did not own pets (M = 2.9, SD = .69). There were certain limitations with this test however, as only seven students were in group 2. We definitely did not put too much stock into this test due to the skewed number for the groups.

The last test we ran was a correlation, which looked at the relationship between two scale variables. The two variables we tested in this bivariate correlation were variables we named “Missed” and “Stressed.” “Missed” looked at how often students with pets missed their pet, while “stressed” looked at how stressed out students feel on a scale of 1-5. The analysis showed a strong, positive correlation between the statement between how often students miss their pets, and how often students are stressed, which was statistically significant (r = .241, n = 99, p = .016). Overall, these tests helped to analyze the data, but the survey spoke for itself in many ways. For example, 98.1% of participants said spendings time with animals could reduce stress levels. This stat alone describes the way that animals can help a multitude of college students.

Takeaways:

After analyzing our data and all of our research findings we came to two overall conclusions:

1.) Students would benefit from having animals on campus. 79.6% of students who completed our online survey believe that Quinnipiac should offer programs involving animals regularly throughout the semester. More than 40 % of students who completed our online survey said that if Quinnipiac had emotional support animals on campus, they would consider going to see one weekly.

2). There is a strong correlation between reducing stress levels and spending time with animals. 98.1 % of students who took our online survey agreed that spending time with animals can reduce stress levels. 59.2 % of students who completed our survey felt that finals week would be the best time for Quinnipiac to have animals on campus available to students.

Future directions based on these findings:

Based on these findings, Where The Love Is, can now proceed to create a partnership with Quinnipiac University in order to involve the students with their work. It is something that pretty much all students could benefit from, based on what we found in both qualitative and quantitative research. Some ideas that we have gone through as a group is getting animals from Where The Love Is on campus during finals week, but also events on campus such as athletic events, fundraisers, etc. This would make the organization more present in the college community, a demographic not often reached by animal adoption groups. The only limitation we found with getting more animals involved on campus is people who may be allergic. However, it will most likely be possible to get past this obstacle, as those students could be accommodated so that they are nowhere near the animals. For the vast majority of students on the Quinnipiac campus, they will be in favor of these potential programs. We hope you can take these findings to help you in the future, as these are just a few directions Where The Love Is can go.

Appendix 1: Interview Recruitment Message

Appendix 2: Interview Consent Form

Appendix 3: Interview Script

Appendix 4: Survey Recruitment Message

Our recruitment message in the Facebook group was as follows:

“Hey guys! I was wondering if anyone would mind taking this survey for my Strategic Communication Class. It will only take about 5-10 minutes of your time, and focuses on how spending time with animals relates to stress level.”

Appendix 5: Survey Consent Form

Appendix 6: Survey Draft

Citations:

“Get to Know Where the Love Is, Inc.” Petfinder, www.petfinder.com/member/us/ct/hamden/where-the-love-is-inc-ct505/.

Crossman, Ashley. “What You Need to Understand About Purposive Sampling.” Thoughtco., Dotdash, 28 Sept. 2018, www.thoughtco.com/purposive-sampling-3026727.

“Celebrating Over 20 Years of Pet Adoption.” Petfinder, www.petfinder.com/.

“Where The Love Is Fall Festival.” Hamden, CT Patch, 29 Sept. 2017, patch.com/connecticut/hamden/calendar/event/20171007/231437/where-the-love-is-fall-festival.

College Students. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.stress.org/college-students

Dogs help humans reduce stress. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://animalsmart.org/species/dogs/dogs-help-reduce-stress