Surveys [was Mandatory Participation in Common Meals Survey Results | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: Sharon Villines (sharon![]() |
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Date: Fri, 29 Jan 2016 06:42:37 -0800 (PST) |
Surveys are much harder to do than most of us would believe before we tried doing one to find out what we wanted to know. Surveys are probably one of the best ways to prove something you wanted to be true — just use the words necessary to produce the result. One reason the response is so low on this list is that we often are asked to fill them out, and often it is by a graduate student who wants us to do their research. The surveys are most often too long and too boring, and filling out surveys is not why we are here. And they never post their results. Thank you for posting yours. A survey like this could dispel some cohousing myths and reveal some trends when matching older communities with new. Meals is one of those. Some communities have 3-4 meals a week and others 1 a month. At Takoma Village, people want far more than we produce. But of course since the people who want have to produce them, it is a unfilled yearning. We have far more than we used to but part of that is increases population — almost double since move-in. But of course you need a representative sample. And questions that can produce unambiguous responses. Some things I’ve learned and have been taught: 1. Multiple choice answers are clearer. The question can be further clarified by the suggested answers. An “other” response is good and can often be tabulated as one of the options — the person just didn’t bother to choose one. 2. Test the questions, especially particular words like “mandatory” as you discovered. Another in the survey that I would have been flummoxed by is “cohesive.” As I sit here writing, I don’t feel any cohesiveness. Everyone is working — some away and some at home. We can certainly be cohesive in an emergency and there is nothing anti-cohesion going on, but are we cohesive? 3. Be sure your methods help produce an balanced result and that you collect the demographic data that helps you know that. 20 responses from one community and 1 from 20 communities? A survey that can only be completed if you know how to use Excel? Or by hand and mailed? 4. Get buy in. If you are sending a million surveys out, you can trust that a certain percentage will be returned. But in a voluntary survey online in a relatively small population it’s more attention to building trust. Reporting your results from this survey is certainly one of the ways to build trust! I think using the list to develop such a survey would be a good exercise that would engage members of the list who rarely post but read faithfully. (You would be surprised how many of those there are.) This is one survey that I encourage you to try again. A focused topic of interest to almost every community. Sharon ---- Sharon Villines Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC http://www.takomavillage.org
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