The Difference Between Paper Testimonials and Forum Users

The Difference Between Paper Testimonials and Forum UsersAs part of my ongoing effort to understand what college-paper testimonials really mean, I spent some time this week comparing results from a two-way study with a research study. Let me begin by saying that it is too early to determine which is the better way of conducting a study, but I think it makes sense to compare two different studies rather than compare testimonials. In short, one paper determines what a group of college students think, while the other group researches that opinion. The result is then compared with college-paper testimonials.To conduct these research studies, each group is assigned to either complete an online or offline survey. For example, I was assigned to perform an online survey on an issue concerning engineering. The students were given a list of three or four potential issues and told to write a brief description of the issue. After completing the questionnaire, they were given a list of 'non-stude nt' names and asked to rate their opinion on whether they agreed or disagreed with the viewpoint in the questionnaire. They were also asked to indicate how strongly they believe the statement in the questionnaire.The students then completed a research study for a particular issue related to Engineering. This same procedure was repeated with the remaining subjects in the online and offline study. In this case, the online students also participated in a survey for a non-engineering issue.I should note that there is no way to quantify the specific 'percentage response' of the online and offline students when it comes to their ratings of the research papers. We can't assume that the responses for the online respondents and offline respondents will be similar.I found that although the online and offline group both gave similar ratings to their paper testimonials, the online group did have a slightly higher response rate for the online study. While it's possible that this difference in re sponse rate is due to the fact that the students were less confident in their abilities in answering questions online, it doesn't seem likely. If anything, the offline students may have been more likely to feel that they had a valid opinion than those who participated in the online discussion.When I finished with the final group, the conclusion was that the group that had participated in the online debate had more confidence in their opinions and rated their paper testimonials as more truthful than the online students. It appears that these students were willing to wade through the Internet to get their opinions across to others. They felt more comfortable responding with a digital pen, and they are more likely to come out looking like they mean what they say.In my conclusion, I noted that the final group was actually a subset of the online group. The main difference between the two groups was that the offline group had no personal connection to the engineering topic, while the onli ne group was recruited from the student body. There were differences in geography as well. The offline group was all located in other countries, whereas the online group was all located in the US.It is worth noting that while many of the writers are very popular forum users, not all of them are very knowledgeable in the field, nor do they have a professional interest in the topic. Most of them will agree with the conclusions of their paper, but not necessarily have a strong personal view of the topic. This makes the results from such work more significant when they come from people who are well-versed in the topic.