Hi! My name is Sonija 
I am currently study “Factors Influencing Foreigners to learn Chinese in Taiwan” support by NSC 
. And I’ll appreciate a lot if you can help me with my study by filling out this Questionnaire Survey. 
Thank you for your time 
.
Dear Sonija,
Best wishes for your research project. After reading your questionnaire items, I wanted to mention a couple of points which may be helpful for you.
1) Informed consent
The preamble/introduction to a questionnaire should include details about the researcher (i.e., affiliations to a certain university), a clear statement of the purpose of the research, a guarantee that participant information will be kept confidential, and an explanation of how the research results will be used in the future (particularly if you intend to publish the results). In your preamble it is unclear whether “Ming Chuan University” or the “National Science Council” is the funding agency. There is also no mention of how the results will be used (i.e., for improving your Mandarin training program, for the purpose of publishing an article, or towards the completion of an advanced degree).
2) Methodology
If your study is funded by the NSC, please be aware that a rigid methodology will be expected. As such, all attempts to ensure the reliability and validity of the questionnaire items should be made. I suspect that this has not yet been done, since there are quite a few items which seem inappropriate or ambiguous. Please see the following examples:
a) spelling errors (“carm school”) and grammatical errors (“staying in Chinese speaking country”).
b) inclusion of items which are incomprehensible to respondents
[quote]“I think Chinese should be a Leaving Cert. subject.”[/quote] – this is a type of certification which is specific to Ireland and would likely be unfamiliar to most of your respondents.
c) inclusion of items which are not appropriate for the sample
[quote]“I know enough about Chinese culture to communicate easily with Chinese people.”[/quote] – the sample for the original Master’s thesis (Liu, 2009), from which most of your items are derived, were individuals studying Mandarin in a non-Mandarin speaking country (i.e., Ireland). As such, many questions would be irrelevant to students learning Mandarin in a Mandarin-speaking country. See the PDF at bit.ly/NZDhN6
d) inclusion of items which may not be clearly related to the research question, or which do not fit into the factors adopted by Liu (2009).
[quote]“I think Taiwan is a friendly place for foreigners.”[/quote] – perhaps if this avenue is to be explored, factors such as costs of living, costs of study, and acclimatization should be considered as well. Otherwise, if Taiwan is to be compared to Mainland China, perhaps you could try to elicit responses from the Mandarin learning community there.
Simple suggestions could be made for improving your questionnaire, including having it proofread by native-speakers of English, experts in Chinese language acquisition, and potential respondents (Mandarin learners). I am sure that this kind of “expert consensus” technique would improve the comprehensibility and validity of the items used. Pilot tests (with a smaller sample) can also be used for both respondent feedback and data reduction (such as factor analysis) in order to ensure that the final form of the questionnaire is concise (at least ten respondents per variable is necessary for most statistical techniques, I believe).
At any rate, best of luck with your research!
Taiwan still really needs good research methods classes.
I’d settle for a bit of plain old common sense.
They need to up university standards in general. Most of them are really just community colleges.
EDIT: OP, I took your survey, but I couldn’t understand some of your questions and it doesn’t seem very structured. If you’re attending a Western university I recommend that you scrap the whole survey and redesign it to be more reflective of what you’re trying to prove. If you’re attending a Taiwanese one…I hate to say it, but we all know that the lecturer won’t care as long as you hand something in, so get your paper written and good luck!
Chinese is easier to learn than other European languages ?..
Chinese culture has changed after attending classes ?
I’d start again , sorry.
[quote=“SummerFlower”]Hi! My name is Sonija I am currently study “Factors Influencing Foreigners to learn Chinese in Taiwan” support by NSC . And I’ll appreciate a lot if you can help me with my study by filling out this Questionnaire Survey. Thank you for your time .
spreadsheets.google.com/spreads … V1hWelE6MQ[/quote]
This is too long there’s no way i could do it.