Hi WereSpielChequers,
thanks for the feedback.
On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 4:04 PM, WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@gmail.com wrote:
The combination of the choices:
Strongly discourages me Discourages me Neither motivates me nor discourages me Motivates me Strongly motivates me No answer
With statements such as:
Editing Wikipedia may undermine my scientific reputation
Leaves no option for people who don't consider that editing Wikipedia would harm their Academic reputation. I suspect that few people are motivated or strongly motivated to edit by the prospect of damaging their scientific reputation. But I would hope that some if not most would consider that Editing Wikipedia would not undermine their scientific reputation (providing that is that they edited responsibly).
There is always the possibility to skip a question ("No answer" is set by default).
Plus, this one is actually complemented by "Editing Wikipedia may help build one's scientific reputation", with the same set of possible answers. So they should find a way to indicate their opinion.
Plus, there is the free comment field at the end of the survey, and participants get an email and a link to http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_Committee/Areas_of_interest/Expert_i... in case they want to follow up.
I think a more useful and neutral question would be to ask if people agreed or disagreed with the statement
Editing Wikipedia may undermine my scientific reputation
Though I'd prefer something much more along the lines of
If you were to edit Wikipedia, what effect do you think this would have on your scientific reputation?
Very negative - negative - neutral/no effect - positive - very positive
We had to balance quite a few parameters when fine-tuning the survey based on the feedback received on the pilot. Besides content issues, important ones were the length, number and arrangement of blocks of question. Once these were set, there is not too much leeway for individual questions having individual sets of possible answers.
Once this survey has generated some useful data, we do plan to do some follow-up interviews and envision the possibility of a range of more detailed/ targeted questionnaires.
Daniel