From time to time I get surveys from YouGov. The surveys can be on anything, politics, economics, environment – you name it.<\/p>\n
I’m currently working with a survey on ‘ethical and environmental issues’, which, I thought, could be thought-provoking and interesting.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, this particular survey is so shockingly-worded, the only thought-provoking going on in my head is just how rubbish the analyst who prepared the questions is at his\/her job.<\/p>\n
Many of the questions have no ‘opt out’ or ‘does not apply’ option which is stupid. That means that I have to choose the least incorrect answer, instead of saying ‘Well actually, this question does not apply to me’.<\/p>\n
A large number of the questions contain no qualifying data – such as the one: ‘I’m trying to cut down on unnecessary car journeys’ where I have to score an answer in the range Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree. My only opt-out is ‘Don’t Know’.<\/p>\n
Where’s the button that says ‘Who the fuck makes unnecessary car journeys in the first place?’, that’s what I want to know?<\/p>\n
Here’s another one: ‘I drive an eco-friendly car’, which I have to score in the same range: Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree or Don’t Know.<\/p>\n
You might know that I drive a 1.9TDCI-engined saloon which, some might say, is not an eco-friendly car.<\/p>\n
But you might also know that I regularly – REGULARLY – get a return of 40-45mpg from it and last week (and again this week) easily achieved trips of over 54mpg.<\/p>\n
Now to me that really *is* an eco-friendly car. Those figures are tremendously more ‘eco-friendly’ than the Pious.<\/p>\n
Sorry, Prius.<\/p>\n
And yet, if I tick the box for having an eco-friendly car I will be giving false information – and there’s enough false information coming out of Westminster alone, without me adding to the ever-increasing mountain of bullshit.<\/p>\n
Here’s another example of laziness, the question is: ‘Please tell us which of the following you either do or have at home?’, which is scored against the answers: Already do\/have; Will do in the next 12 months; Don’t do; Definitely will not do; Don’t know\/Not applicable.<\/p>\n
That last response troubles me before I’ve even started looking at the questions, but I battle on.<\/p>\n
Q. Use a water butt for the garden. I want to put ‘Not applicable’ but if I tick that box the person analysing the response might think I’m saying ‘Don’t know’. Hmm.<\/p>\n
Q. Install cavity wall insulation. I want to put ‘Already got it’ but do I tick the ‘Not Applicable’ box and have my answer potentially counted as a ‘Don’t know’?<\/p>\n
Q. Install double glazing. I want to put ‘Already got it throughout the house’, but again I’m faced with only being able to tick a box which opens the answer up to misinterpretation.<\/p>\n
Here’s another: ‘Which of the following are you already doing or would\/would not consider doing?’<\/p>\n
Bearing in mind the context<\/em> of the survey, the question ‘Taking fewer baths’ leaps out at me because, in this house, we probably draw one bath a month. But, to go back to context again, the reason we take so few baths is because we shower every day – we prefer showers though, it’s nothing to do with environmental concerns. I have two (occasionally three) showers a day, and not because of any of the focusses of this survey.<\/p>\n So again, I’m forced to giving the least incorrect answer. More laziness from the analyst who set the questions.<\/p>\n The question ‘Keeping a compost heap’ similarly allows me only to give an incorrect answer; ‘Does not apply’ isn’t there for me to put as my answer. I can say ‘Don’t know’ which, frankly, is utter nonsense.<\/p>\n Lazy, lazy, lazy, lazy.<\/p>\n It’s a simple fact that a survey has to engage with its audience. If it doesn’t engage, the respondent will lose the connection and will either give up, or will just tick boxes at random.<\/p>\n And that’s where my head has gone.<\/p>\n I’m now reduced to selecting the least wrong answer in almost every section, and all because someone behind the scenes at YouGov lacked the ability to think straight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From time to time I get surveys from YouGov. The surveys can be on anything, politics, economics, environment – you name it. I’m currently working<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stuff","two-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3000\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}