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Participate in my PhD Research into Geocaching


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Completed survey. Couple of points on the survey (I am a Ph.D. statistician). Survey needs specific header information about who you are - links to your research department etc for additional credibility. A time line for collecting results is important (I assume you want to finish your Ph.D eventually). You dont ask about the general location of the respondent - this prohibits classification of response by specific region a factor which may an important response descriptor. No socio economic data is requested so you cannot classify responses in relation to socio economic status which may be a BIG predictor of inclination to participate in any informal learning activities. You also ask no questions about rural vs urban enviroments which are likely to be aliased with the type of informal learning activities. Another would be weather a vehicle was regularly used to get from cache to cache. Good luck with your research.

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After a couple of false starts, got it done. I agree with a prior post that a economic question or two would have been good but overall a very good survey. Good luck.

Many thanks. And thanks to everybody who has come back in the thread with suggestions and comments as well, and to the newbies - a range of responses is great. I have answered some of the comments in the thread, but I didn't want to clutter it up unnecessarily so I've responded to some through PM or email. The fact that so many of you have taken the trouble to give me your feedback is really encouraging and I intend to incorporate many of the suggestions into my follow-up case studies, and mention the source of the ideas in the final thesis. I think it is worth noting that many of the "participants" have actually been proactive and are feeding ideas into the research.

 

I'll post again 24 hours before I'm closing the survey. But to give you some advance warning of the duration of the survey (an omission highlighted quite rightly by an Ann Bush in an earlier post), the survey will close at 11:30am GMT on Friday 29th June 2007.

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I started filling in your form, but stopped when I read the question 'how do you find the time to go geocaching?'. Sorry dude, this is not a research question. You don't find time, you don't have time. I hope the quality of the research is not a criterium for your PhD. What are you going to write in your findings? 'a lot of people answered that they did not had a life next to geocaching, i found this to be a funny answer?'

I also agree with the above. I go to that question and stopped. It didn't make sense to me.

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:o

 

Did survey. Was not offended by the "find Time" question but was unsure of the point. It's like asking when one finds time to exercise or go for a walk: One finds time for the activities that are important to them.

Yes, I have to admit that that question is causing problems.

 

My original version of the survey did not have it, but I was asked to include it by one of my supervisors (one who is not a geocacher). As you say, when you have a hobby or interest, it's easy to find time to do it. I do find that when I tell people about geocaching, I get a range of responses. Many are intrigued and want to try it out. Some just can't understand how people can set aside enough time to do it.

 

I have received some interesting responses which I will be able to use in my qualitative analysis, but in all honesty, I wish I'd left the question out. Still, you live and learn <_<

 

Thanks for completing the survey.

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I shall be taking the web survey off-line tomorrow at 11:30am UK Daylight Saving time. I think this is 06:30am EST or 05:30am EDT, just over 24 hours from now.

 

I will download the data and post a summary of the raw results in a new thread next week.

 

I'm also very grateful to all of you who have provided me with contact details and offered to participate in follow up interviews. I shall be in touch in July/August to organise this.

 

I'd like to thank all of you who have taken the time to participate in my web survey. The response rate has been fantastic and I have got some really rich data. <_<

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