During our first discussion on what would be the research question for our group project, Ryan Elliott, Joe Gruber and I began to experience the difficulties with collecting data. Joe’s original idea was to test which class of cadets would be more willing to disregard VMI superstitions. Joe had the idea to use the willingness for a cadet to pass between limits gates as a test of this. My first thought was than an unbiased sample would be very difficult to collect for numerous reasons. First, undetected observation would be extremely difficult because passing between limits gates is not the convenient route to most any point on post and therefore it would be very likely that cadets may have avoided the route simply to save time. Therefore, it would be required to inform the cadet in question to the nature of the study and to gain information through survey data. This could potentially have a biasing effect as cadets may change their behavior when they know they are being observed. Second, splitting the sample by class may also have a undesired effect, especially in regards to rats who may not be familiar at all with the superstition in question.