Results and Analysis

Once unfinished surveys along with responses from those who did not meet our inclusion criteria were extracted, we were left with a final total of 73 participants. For our survey, we included three different age groups starting at 18-40 years old which had the bulk of our participants at 76.71% (56 of 73 participants). Next we looked at 41-60 years old which comprised 17.81% (13 of 73) of our participants and finally 61 years and up comprised 5.48% (4 of 73 participants) of our final survey. We were originally hoping for a more even spread between age ranges but with the cancellation of the 2020 Indiana State Shoot, we did not have access to all the possible participants we planned for but instead had to rely on participants willing to take our survey online through the Ball State Qualtrics system. Nevertheless, separating our participants by age further allows us to break down and analyze the received data of the survey to see any trends that took place. In the breakdown of our survey, 1.82% of our 18-40 group shot as often as a few times a week while 21.43% shoot a few times a month while the majority, 76.36%, said that they shoot a few times a year. For frequency of shooting in this middle aged group, 84.62% said that they partake in shooting once a year while 15.39% say they shoot once a month. Finally, in our eldest group of participants, they reported that 50% of them shoot a few times a year while the other 50% shoot a few times a month. It is important, however, to remember that as our age groups got older our pool of participants decreased, for this reason some of our numbers may show some fluctuations. Another important section of our survey pertained to the types of firearms that participants regularly shot; they were instructed to select all that apply as well as provided a write in section if they used other types of firearms not listed. For this, our participants reported use of handguns/ pistols the most with 38.1%, followed by shotguns at 30.36%, and rifles at 29.17%.Along with these three main types of firearms, we also had an other option in which four participants added that they also shoot muzzleloading/ black powder rifles, machine guns, and a MK-19 grenade launcher. The next question we would like to delve further into is that of what type of hearing protection that our participants reported use of while shooting. They reported predominantly wearing over the ear or earmuff style the most at 53%, followed by foam plugs next at 37%, and 2% reported using custom hearing protection. They were also provided with another option in this section in which 6% said that they wore both foam plugs underneath their over the ear muffs, silicone plugs, or moldable wax plugs. When comparing the different age groups and the types of hearing protection they use, 41 of the 56 participants who were 18 to 40 year olds report that they wear at least over the ear style hearing protection,  29 wear at least foam ear plugs alone, and 19 wear both over the ear style and foam earplugs. One person from this group reports no hearing protection use and 2 use custom ear plugs. The other two age groups had similar hearing protection device use, with the majority wearing over the ear style devices, followed closely by the foam earplug style. The goal of our study was to determine the specific needs for hearing conservation materials for the recreational shooters we would survey, but promisingly only 2 of the 73 people who participated reported that they would not wear hearing protection if not told to do so, with 9 others saying that they might wear hearing protection if not told to do so. See graphs of select survey items below, these graphs are not separated by age and the data within encompasses all 73 participants answers. Two of the questions, "What kinds of guns do you shoot?" and "What type of hearing protection do you use when you shoot?" allowed the participants to select more than one answer, which is why these questions have more than 73 responses.