# Mobility Patterns of Students: Evidence from Tricity Area, Poland
## 3 Research Method  
### Survey Method  
The aim of the survey was to examine the mobility patterns of Polish young adults, but also compare their attitudes to those identified in the literature, mainly presenting the patterns of the same cohort in other countries. At the time of carrying out the survey, there were no data about mobility patterns for Polish society--no national travel survey was made for this country. The survey had 23 questions about general opinions and attitudes of Ys (to verify if they present similar general characteristics to Ys in other societies) and current transport choices. Many researchers agree that it is the attitude towards the car, not its ownership, which is the most significant aspect of transport attitudes in general. A car, in this sense, is not only a means of transport but an artifact of a generation (mostly for Baby Boomers), an object defining or even enhancing social status [78; 79; 80]. Residuals of this attitude are still visible, and the goal of the study was to verify the intensity of this attitude and verify if it affects the current transport decisions. This is why these attitudes were collected in regards to the car and not other means of transport and a car was a point of interest of many questions. The questionnaire was divided into survey items about general opinions and behaviors, transport behavior and demographical items. It was based on a couple of papers (for some--on available questionnaires, for some--only research results tables) [77; 81; 4; 9; 11] and contained closed (dominating), open and semi-open questions, 5 or 10-point scale questions, disjunctive and conjunctive questions regarding attitudes, behaviors and opinions. Although the 5-point scale is accepted and widely used in research, a 10-point Likert scale was required for measuring the opinions of respondents. Using the end-defined wide scale is justified in urban studies by [PERSON] and [PERSON] [82] and was accepted as a reliable source for statistical analysis [83]. It is more sensitive to differences in opinions or behaviors of different respondents and possible to be turned into a 5-point scale if needed. Filtering questions aimed to define groups of young adults with particular attitudes and choices. To validate and verify the proposed questionnaire, a pilot study was carried out among students born in 1997 (42 students). Then, the questionnaire was corrected according to the pilot group's comments. Those improvements included clarification of three questions: about the characteristics of the Y Generation, about the characteristics of car and place of living. Some of the sentences and statements in the primary questionnaire in those questions were not perceived by pilot group members as easy to understand. After amendments and validation, the URL link of the survey was made available for potential respondents, young adults studying at universities in the Tricity area. The mentioned participants group was recruited with the use of a purposive strategy [84; 85] based on the inclusion criteria that the participant should be born between 1981 and 1999, be a Polish citizen and a student of a university located in the Tricity area. Because usually, the return ratio is very low, to increase the number of participants and database needed to verify the research hypotheses, a snowball sampling method [86; 87], a nonprobability approach was applied. The URL link was shared on social media to increase the probability of reaching more respondents. According to Polish data for territorial units, the population of students in 2018 in the Tricity area was 78,120 people, including 45,393 women (58.11%) and 32,727 men (41.89%) [88]. Finally, 306 people took part in the survey; 304 filled questionnaires were valid for further analysis. The collected research sample is similar to the population in terms of gender, personal status and age structure. In addition, due to the very nature of the sampling method, the occupancy is in line with the overall assumed population.