Course talk:POLI3802012/Survey/PublicPolicy

 Do you think there is enough funding towards education?
 Are there any children in your household of school-going age? (y/n) If yes, how many?
 How far is the nearest elementary school from your house? 
 How far is the nearest high school from your house?

I'm not sure for the answers for "how far questions", I was thinking of either determining distance by number of blocks or km. I'm not sure what would be easier?

 Do you support the teachers' job action? (yes/somewhat/no/don't know or not sure) 
 Are there any children in your household of school-going age? (y/n) If yes, how many?
 Has the job action affected you or anyone you know? (y/n) 

Let me know your thoughts about the questions, any changes, or if we want to use any for our final five questions. SaharAhmed 21:00, 11 February 2012 (PST)

For the "how far" answers, perhaps we could do it by the length of time it takes to get there. It's pretty easy for a family to know how long it takes to get to the child's school from home, but the kilometers or blocks may be less useful, especially if their school is far away. Saying 0-10 minute drive, 11-20 minute drive, 21-30 minute drive, 31-40 minute, 41+ minutes maybe be easier for a participant to answer than 0-10 kilometers, 11-20 kilometers, etc. However, I don't know how useful that is as a survey answer. Any thoughts?

I was thinking of using kilometers, because some children might be driven to school, some might walk and some might take transit. So measuring in minutes might be skewed because some people might answer in terms of walking, dirving, or bussing. But it is true that most people would not know the exact distance in kilometers either. SaharAhmed 14:19, 13 February 2012 (PST)

I definitely understand the concern over methods of transportation - that's why I specified 10 minutes driving, etc. It makes a difference, for sure. I still have concerns over usability of kilometers to measure distance, but - if participants can figure it out - then yes, it would probably be most accurate. I definitely prefer kilometeres over blocks.

Although I prefer kilometers, I think driving time(or soemthing similar) would be the better option because I think more people would know and answer the question. SaharAhmed 14:39, 13 February 2012 (PST)

Hey guys, I had an issue with my assignment and have been a bit out of the loop but it looks like you guys have made good progress so far. Have the five survey questions been decided yet? I see some suggestions above but I was thinking maybe we could start a google doc and see which questions would work best/vote or something along those lines. Thoughts?

I like the public transit questions and was thinking another question to consider could be "how often do you use public transportation?" (daily, a few times a week, a few times a month, rarely, never) SaharAhmed 21:07, 11 February 2012 (PST)

I think determining the frequency of transit use is a useful question. I think "daily," "a few time a week," and "a few times a month" are slightly better answer options than "rarely," as it's less specific. I think "never" is totally valid, of course, but I think "rarely" could be defined as a few times a month. What is rarely exactly - "a few times a year"? Perhaps that would be better. I'd love to get another opinion about the options.

I see your point, I think it would be a good idea to change rarely to "few times a year" to keep it consistent with the other answers. SaharAhmed 14:10, 13 February 2012 (PST)

Maybe we could also include a question that determines how efficient existing transit routes are once we have determined if they are accessible or not. For example, Are buses often to full for everyone to board? Or Is there a need to increase the frequency of buses on the routes you use?

I think it would be interesting to include a question or a series of questions on rapid-transit. Maybe something about the Canada Line?

Potential questions could be:

"How often do you use the Canada Line?" (Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Yearly, Never) "How do you feel about the efficiency of the Canada Line?" (Very efficient, Somewhat efficient, Not efficient, Don't know) "Do you support more rapid transit construction in Vancouver?" (Yes, No, Not Sure)

I think the "do you support more rapid transit construction?" would be useful to ask. I think it might be useful to change the question about efficiency into a statement and have the answers as strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree etc as we were discussing in class about how statements are often a useful way to gauge people's opinion espeically if the statement is quite bold.

I think we should use the talk about rapid transit but make sure it applies to those who are being asked outside of Vancouver.

I was just wondering if we should stick to one particular issue such as transit or education, since we only have to come up with a total of 5 questions(correct me if I'm wrong)? Or if we are going to tackle more than one issue? I was also wondering if one question can be sub-divided like for example question 1 and than two or three questions underneath labelled as 1a, 1b etc. If we are allowed to do that than I think it would be easier to ask questions about different aspects of public policy. If not, than maybe it would be easier to stick to one topic. SaharAhmed 14:29, 13 February 2012 (PST)

I think that if we stick to one topic (my vote is transit), then we will increase our chances of shedding light on how people feel about one aspect of public policy. If we have one question or so on each topic, we probably won't end up having a very useful survey and I feel like it will be much easier to think of better questions if we focus on one area.

I totally agree that we should stick with transportation and be thorough about it. I think that will be more useful and provide better data. I'd go for rich data over broad data.

Hey everyone! So we're just going to be sticking to transportation questions? If so, I think we should ask something about the adequacy of highways/road systems and relate that to time spent commuting to work.

I definitely think that there should be one question regarding the condidtions of the roads/highways. I was also just wondering if the questions we have on the questions page so far, are ones that we are using for sure? And since we are sticking to questions about transportation, I think we should take out the question about having a family doctor then.

I agree to both statements. I don't really know much about roadways however, as I've never driven around Vancouver, so I don't have a substantive addition to that. What about bike questions as well? I'm also not a cyclist, so I'm not sure what is a relevant question. My suggestions for that specifically are below though.