Research Methodology This section describes the research methods utilised to address the overarching research questions. It outlines the demographic characteristics of the sample surveyed, research design, measures, data collection processes and data analysis strategy.
Research Design The 2021 Community Attitudes Survey (2021 CAS) is a modified version of the 2016 Community Attitude Survey (2016 CAS) that answers the research question/sub-questions. The 2021 CAS has questions about sociodemographic of respondents on their postcode, gender, age, ethnicity, educational level, employment status, and annual household income. The survey also asks respondents about their perceptions of DV using close-ended questions (quantitative) and some selected open-ended questions (qualitative) about their knowledge of definition of domestic and family violence, its severity, and knowledge of gendered nature of domestic and family violence. The survey also identifies attitudes towards DV, particularly around power in relationships, rape and sexual assault to identify attitudes towards victim blaming, minimising DV and excusing perpetrator behaviours. The 2021 CAS also asks questions about how members of the Wagga Wagga community would respond to DV situations and if they have seen/heard/participated in any of theDVproject:2650 activities. The 2021 CAS questions reflect the Wagga Wagga local context to personalise the survey to them. The 2021 CAS was self-administered online, and survey link distributed by the Wagga Wagga City Council (Council) to target project sample number.
Perceptions of Wagga Wagga community members about DV For the purposes of data collection, a self-administered online survey was constructed to identify the perceptions of the Wagga Wagga community regarding domestic and family violence to answer the research sub-questions outlined under “research questions”. The survey comprised 20 questions that related to demographic details and DV definition, attitudes/beliefs, theDVproject:2650, and how participants would respond to DV (explained further under “measures for online survey”). The questions were replicated from the 2016 CAS. The online survey was pilot tested with members similar to the intended respondents, with the aim of ensuring content and design validity. After modifying and testing the online survey, it was administered to members of the Wagga Wagga community in NSW. The research questions, study participants, measures, pre-data collection procedures, field data collection procedures, challenges encountered in data collection and data analysis procedures are described below.
Research Questions/sub-questions • • • •
What is the understanding or knowledge of the Wagga Wagga community about domestic violence? What are the attitudes and beliefs that the Wagga Wagga community hold towards domestic violence? How have these attitudes and beliefs towards DV shifted or changed since 2016 as a result of theDVproject:2650? How would members of the Wagga Wagga community respond to domestic violence?
Participants for online survey It was planned at the outset that in order to obtain a representative sample, the online survey would target 1,050 members of the Wagga Wagga community. To compose the sampling frame, multiple organisations were contacted to assist in the dissemination of the survey link within their networks. Due to the snowballing of the survey dissemination, it was not possible to know how many individuals received the link. City-wide letter box distribution of the survey marketing material was also conducted, including villages in the Local Government Area.
