PowerSwitch

Hi,
Fairly close now to 'unleashing' a rather large Peak Oil survey (it covers 15 categories!)

Would appreciate some people taking the time to go through, see if it makes sense, see if there are any lame questions there or vital questions missing.

Don't worry about the comments boxes, just the others.

To anyone wanting to answer it properly - please hold off a day or two, until it is officially released, although I will be very welcoming of your response when the time comes!

Go to
http://peak-oil-survey-2009.questionpro.com


Thanks!

Very good James.

I have worked in market research for many years before farming. The following comments are from good practice in MR, to make sure people don't make too many mistakes in answering the questions.

Here are my comments:

What has been your most recent area of employment (e.g. I.T, Engineer, Teacher ): Many of us have changed jobs as a result of learning about PO. You need to split this into before/ original and changed to as a result ...
I moved from being a Market Research Executive to farmer. Either of these answers by themselves are misleading
----------------
What do you think will be the global rate of decline of oil supplies?: this question should have specific %s, not fuzzy answers, like moderate. One man's moderate is another's extreme
----------------
Peak Oil means Climate Change is less likely: these statements need to be positive because many people get the answers wrong when combined with a negative - the result will then be unreliable
The same comment for these:
Declining oil supplies will not affect my country's agriculture
Declining oil supplies will not affect the diversity of food in the my country
Social mobility will decrease ==> increase
Declining energy supplies will generally have a negative impact on healthcare ==> positive
Declining energy supplies will generally have a negative impact on education ==> positive
I would not like to live where I am living now in a post-Peak world

----------------
My government knows about but does not publicly acknowledge Peak Oil: rephrase to (each question must unambiguous)
My government knows about Peak Oil but does not publicly acknowledge Peak Oil

Cheers

What is the purpose of the survey? It seems unscientific.

Paul, thank you so much, great pointers!

It's supposed to be good practice to put the age, sex, country etc questions last, so that a survey-ee isn't sort-of "prejudiced about themselves", having filled them in, before they start to answer any questions about opinions. Just a thought (I read this while looking for information about how to put together a marketing research survey for my Master's, though I've no professional experience of doing them).

Again, useful info! Will put that into place.

Be sure to let us know when it is actually live in its final format, James.

Either on this thread or a new one. Or both, of course

First questions assume the individual is "actively interested"!

Who is this aimed at? Does it exclude those who are not "actively interested"?

Hi Keela, thank you. Yes, maybe I should clarify that further.

tubaplayer wrote:Be sure to let us know when it is actually live in its final format, James.

Either on this thread or a new one. Or both, of course

Don't worry, you won't be able to escape it when it is live!

Hi James,

What exactly are you trying to find out with this survey?

How are you going to process the results?

Vortex wrote:Hi James,

What exactly are you trying to find out with this survey?

How are you going to process the results?

Is that a survey about the survey?

<nitpicking>

On "Peak Oil and Agriculture" one of the questions states "Declining oil supplies will affect the diversity of food in the my country". You should lose either 'the' or 'my' before 'country'.

"Government and Politics". You ask both "We may need to sacrifice democracy in return for energy and climate security" and "I would sacrifice democracy in return for energy and climate security". While the questions aren't the same I think they're so similar that you could lose one of them, I would cull the "I" one myself. There's a few more examples like this.

"About You part 2". You're asking "What is you gender". Add an 'r' to 'you' and it will be correct.

</nitpicking>

I got stuck at the first hurdle. I'm 19 but the options were either under 18 or 20-29.

More pedantry, but it does make you read the question twice to make sense of it:

My country will wait for a miracle technology (or technologies) or energy source will save us from the impacts of Peak Oil

We should wait for a miracle technology (or technologies) or energy source will save us from the impacts of Peak Oil

Shouldn't will be to?