Course talk:POLI380SEPT2010Cutler/Survey/Census Long Form Controversy

Heya, I'm just starting the discussion here. I have one question up that I think is important to have if we want to see what kind of people are for or against the long form census. (Ben)

Hey, I found these articles [1] and [2] on the Macleans website. The first one is a blog post with links to some short papers that look at the importance of the census from different angles, and the second is a feature article from a few weeks back about the relationship Stephen Harper has with the intellectual class and how the change to the census will exacerbate the divide between the two. (Jeremy)

• I like question 1! It's a good bit of background.
• Should question 2 read Long Form rather than Short Form?
• Should we have a question about the perceived general economic effects of the Long Form Census pre-changes, given number 2?
• Can you think of a way to ask why people think what they do about the Long Form Census that keeps the question and responses short? It might not be possible, but it would be interesting information!
• I've also added another question to the list! (#3) It's a pretty obvious one, but I think it needs to be asked.

KathleenMills 00:30, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

I like the idea about asking people why they don't support the census. If we gave several distinct options and an "other" category, I think we could make it work. We may have to code the "other" category as a missing value though. --BenMorris 04:22, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

"Asking people why they don't support the census" implies that respondents don't like the census; that question is biased. I think we really should remember that we can only include 5 questions; I think we should try to formulate questions accordingly. Plus, we're supposed to try to make questions that link to other parts of the survey (i.e.: how the changes to the census affect BC, Minorities, etc).

In regards to question 1, I think we need to add a provision for people who did not fill out a Canadian census form because they either did not live in Canada during the last census or someone else in their household filled it in.

Hi everyone! I hope I'm not the last one to join the discussion board. I see we already have some solid questions to start off with! I agree with the idea that asking people the reason they are unhappy with the census can be a useful information, but I also agree that such question might cause unintentional bias in their responses if we are not careful with how we word the question. (Suzy)

Good point about the "why you don't support the census question." If asked in conjunction with "do you support the changes" I don't think we would have a bias question. Also although we can only have 5 questions, I think we should put down as many as we can and then take the best ones. Lastly, it seems that we need to pick a focus for our questions. Do we want to ask people how they feel about the census itself, or should we focus on what people think will happen when the census is changed?--BenMorris 16:28, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Hey guys! I agree with Ben, that we should have some sort of focus to our questions. Perhaps with our questions we can start broad and go more narrow? Like: whether its finding out what people think about the long form census (whether they like it or not), why, if they have any resolutions to the long-form census etc., that way we can get more feedback on what they think should be done, and not just questions simply on how they feel about the long form. (Mariah)

For Question 6, I think we might need to reword 'jail time' to simply 'punishment' or 'fines' as no one has ever been jailed for not filling out a census and indicating that 'jail time' is a valid threat may skew all the answers to no. --BenMorris 06:27, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, we can for sure change that. And although no one has actually been arrested for not filling out a census, that is the maximum punishment, that could technically happen, if someone did not complete the census (Mariah).

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Hey everybody!

Ok so I was watching the news today and the Conservatives are trying to say that citizens complained that the census "impinged on their privacy" blah blah blah so I think one of the questions should just be one relating to that with different levels of agreement (I added it to the page). That way it will tell us how valid some of the Conservatives points are on their interpretation of how Canadians feel about it. The MP said that at least one person complained and that's enough to change public policy... then the reporter had a good laugh about it!

I know we're just throwing questions up there for now and I agree we need to focus, and I think part of that should be deciding which questions are best applicable to the current controversy (i.e. maybe not get so specific as proper monetary punishments) and also most likely to produce answers (not missing values) from people. I think something like this is important to gauge how people are feeling about it. I also think it'll be easier for most people to answer the kind of question I proposed about the census than the long-term economic effects... we might end up with a lot of missing values for that one. --MiekaBuckleyPearson 19:43, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Mieka, I agree with your points, especially about the topic of our focus. From the questions currently up, 1,3,5,8 and possibly 4, fit that description (I picked that order because it seemed the most logical). I won't claim they're prefect in their current wording, but idea wise I think they fit. --BenMorris 04:25, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree as well that those are our best questions to date. When asking them though, I think we should order the questions from broad to narrow, just so the individual has a good sense of the questions they are being asked in advance. As well, I agree that 6 and 7 are not as crucial, but perhaps more so just an interest on what people believe should be a proper punishment. So maybe what we should do for now is focus on questions 1,3,4,5 and 8 and try to reword? (Mariah)

I'm glad to see that some of us are on the same page. I was wondering if for question 3 we can assume that people are aware of the proposed changes at all? Are we trying to establish how they feel about the controversy, or the usefulness of the census itself, or both? I think we need to decide since we only have five questions. The way I see it we can try to establish if Canadians feel the census is an invasion of their privacy, and then if they think making it voluntary (as the Conservatives suggest) or otherwise is a good thing. Maybe one of our questions should ask people what they would prefer happens with the census (mandatory, voluntary, abolished)? Instead of assuming they already know the possible options? (I added it to the bottom - please edit/check it out it's just a brain storm). I don't have a solution I'm just throwing things out there. (Mieka) --MiekaBuckleyPearson 19:42, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

I also added a tenth question that is poorly worded but I wanted to get the idea down for editing. Part of the controversy is that the census is not only an invasion of privacy, but that it is a useless one. If we discover that Canadians do think it is useless that would be really interesting. We can then relate their notions of privacy/usefulness to whether they want to change it or not. --MiekaBuckleyPearson 19:43, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

I know that we're trying to narrow down the focus of our survey, but if we decide to use #4 for our survey, shouldn't we provide a question for those who answered "no" to #3? (ex. the reason they wish to keep the census as it is: 1) reliability of data collected, 2) effect on economy, 3) effect on public services, etc) (Suzy)

I think question 9 is important, because ultimately we are trying to figure out HOW people feel about the census, and WHAT they would do to change it and make them more willing to complete it. My only concern thus far is a lot of people may not know about the long-form census, which would completely kabbosh a lot of our questions, because if they don't know what it is, then the rest of our questions may be skewed based on an uninformed individual making up answers. Is there any way for us to form the first question about the long-form census just simply asking if they have heard about all the controversy around it (and maybe if not have a simple blurb to fill them in quickly?) Maybe that isn't a smart idea chronologically, but that way we know everyone is on the same page when answering our questions... (Mariah)

I think we can solve the informed/uninformed problem by adding "9. don't know" in the choices. I think adding a block of paragraphs would be fine to like Mariah suggested. However, I'm worried that devoting an entire question just to ask people whether they heard about it or not might be too much since we only get to choose five questions for our survey. (Suzy)

I put together a proposed order of questions and kept all the questions we've thrown down underneath it. I like the questions, but I'm not entirely set on the order because I think it would skew our results a bit. I've added some info to 2 of the questions that explain what kinds of questions are on the long form which may be easier than having a blurb at the outset. --BenMorris 18:12, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

I looked up the census forms from last time around, and apparently age, marital status, and spoken languages are all in the Short Form Census. The long form is [3] and the short form is [4] if you'd like to give them a look. I adjusted the questions to match that. I also pulled out the 'my' from question 8, and edited to have a more neutral tone - it now parallels the question style of number 10. I switched up the order a little bit, and I think it will make a little bit more sense this way. I also made it so that only the first question about attitudes to the long form included the additional information about what it included. This should make it less of a mouthful. KathleenMills 01:54, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Hello, everyone. Since we should have only 5 questions for our survey, I think we need to narrow down our survey question clearly. It is not very clear whether we would like to focus on how people feel about the census itself or how people feel about the census change. It would be easier for us to provide clear ideas if we have a clear research question. I would like to focus more on the census change so that we can come up with more questions about how people feel about the change and how the change would affect them. I like the way Ben put together the questions (1,10,8,9, and 11), but i think we'd better choose more questions about the census change rather than the census itself. Since we already have many questions, it wouldn't take so long for us to choose 5 best questions! (Eunji)

I'm pretty sure the questions are supposed to be about the controversy of changing to a voluntary short form survey. I also think question 1 and 11 overlap a bit too much given the small number of questions we're allowed. I think that 1 could be expanded or clarified so that question 11 effectively gets answered. I feel that it would be more worthwhile to see what people think about the change (an how that affects census results) because it's something the census will never measure in that once the voluntary census is completed, there will be a number of respondents that can be compared to the number of respondents to the long form survey. Finally, I think the questions need to have a "Don't know / Refuse to answer" value as well. (Jeremy)

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It looks to me like our research question is something like this: Do Canadians find the mandatory long-form census invasive or invaluable, and does that influence their support (or lack there of) of the current government's proposed changes to the census?

Theory: Canadians who find the long-form census invasive or invaluable also support the government's decision to make it voluntary.

Variables: 1) Canadians' sentiments towards census (invasion of privacy/value - independent), 2) Canadians' support of changes to census (dependent)

Questions 8/10 inform variable 1, Question 9 informs variable 2. Questions 1/11 give us background/other information about their opinions.

11 is answering a second research question: "Will the changes lead to less Canadians' filling out the long-form census?" Which is related and potentially informative so I think we should keep it.

We will also be able to compare answers to other questions in the survey - ie. if there is a correlation between education and opinion on the long-form census.

I question if we have to keep question 1 but otherwise it seems to work for me, though maybe we need to reorganize/word a bit. --MiekaBuckleyPearson 20:13, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Mieka, about where our questions are leading, although I would suggest that question 11 will be helpful in analysing whether people who support it's work / think it's invasive are more or less likely to fill out the long form census once it is made voluntary. The answers seem obvious, but it's the kind of thing that you would want to see the effects of precisely.

I also agree on question 1 being possibly not necessary, (or possibly giving too many missing values to be relevant) but I don't see a better question either.

I think our ordering is pretty solid, and I think our focus now should really be on wording more than anything else. KathleenMills 21:03, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the outline, Mieka! It's easy to follow and very clear. Is the survey assignment due next Monday? --SuzyYoon 04:13, 15 October 2010 (UTC)