"Could you take my survey?"

Last Tuesday, I was approached by two very shy and awkward Korean students while I was with my English Language Discussion Group. They wanted to know if I could help them out, to which I answered, "Sure."

Turns out the girl was a Psychology major and she had the guy there as her support, and they wanted to know if I wouldn't mind taking a psychological questionnaire for them about social anxiety type questions that being a member of SIRL (Social Issues and Relations Lab), I was familiar with the line of questioning. So I informed the girl that I was also a Psychology major too, so I took her little questionnaire.

I was really shocked at her questionnaire, it did not meet the requirements that I recalled being drilled into my head at ETSU and also the requirements that I had to go through to get my Identity study approved! First off, the scale that was used words that even I as a Native English speaker had no clue what it was trying to measure. So I told her so, and then asked her to explain her scale to me, which she didn't understand my question and then Ji-Hye asked her in Korean what the scales meant and she just shrugged her shoulders. Not exactly comforting. Then I tried for a simpler approach. "Is 1 Good, 3 Not Good/Not Bad and 5 Bad?" "Yes," the guy said. So I wrote that to the side next to the numbers. Then while I was taking the Survey, they pretty much stood over my shoulder while I was taking it...watching me...

OK that's another big NO, NO, for Psychological testing. You don't watch your subjects taking the test unless that's what you're testing, "the comfort level of test taking participants when being examined by the examiners."

I honestly looked around the Lounge trying to find someone who might be sitting there recording my reactions, but there was no one that I could tell that was taking any notes.

A tad bit disturbing, but then again, I think she was a Freshman, so she might not have taken the Psychological testing class yet.

I hope...