Questions with answers for review...

Hi Guys, It seems as though we are in some agreement about the questions… If not please free to make suggestions. I though getting them formatted similar to our final submission might help us organize our thoughts better. Please make suggestions regarding the answers as I did them as best I could but recognize they might need a little work. Also, I left out the safe injection site question for reasons I mentioned earlier. If as a group we’d like to include it, no problem, we’ll just have to drop one of these or find away to combine two.

1. What cause do you attribute most to an individual experiencing extreme poverty and homelessness in Vancouver?

Answers: 1. Consequence of poor personal decisions, 2. Victim of uncontrollable circumstances, 3. Failure of social system, 4. Mental illness or disability, 5. Other

2. To what degree do you view homelessness and extreme poverty as a social problem in Vancouver?

Answers: 1. Not at all, 2. Very little, 3. Somewhat, 4. Very much

3. Do you believe there are satisfactory and effective social programs available for those experiencing homelessness and poverty to help them overcome those circumstances?

Answers: 1. Strongly disagree, 2. Disagree, 3. Neutral, 4. Agree, 5. Strongly agree

4. To what degree do you feel the government is responsible for aiding the homeless in Vancouver?

Answers: 1. Not responsible at all, 2. Somewhat responsible, 3. Neutral, 4. Responsible, 5. Very responsible

5. What level of government should be most responsible for providing aid to the homeless?

Answers: 1. None, 2. Municipal, 3. Provincial, 4. Federal

For our final submission, are we going to format it as each question on a 5-scale measure, or have different scales depending on the question? I feel that we should definitely have some sort of pattern where we follow each question on the same sort of numerical scale. As well, if we include an "other" option, I think we need to include a "Do not know/I'm not sure" option, that way, respondents are forced to give an answer that they may not know. Don't forget that we're surveying a population that may not be aware of the situation! (Maybe we can prevent this by providing a summary or case study of the statistics of homelessness/poverty we are trying to measure?)

I have a problem with the first question, as I believe that this question is a sort of loaded question. A person with very little/no knowledge of homelessness may contribute their answer based on an uninformed decision and rather just on the prospects on the options available, so I think what we should maybe do is load the question with information. Furthermore, I think that we should define what exactly we would describe homelessness and poverty to be as. The more specific we are the more informed decisions we are able to gain.

I think your concern about a person making an uninformed decision is fair, but if we prompt them with something to make an "informed" decision, the answer could actually turn out more biased. It might be better to get a more "organic" unprompted response. We're probably safe in assuming that people will have a knowledge of homelessness.

Hi Jason,

I mentioned earlier that perhaps adding a "don't know" option to the questions where we utilize the Likert Scale may yield more accurate results since some people may not have an opinion about the question itself at all (not neutral) I'm not sure if you agree with this...what do you guys think?

I am personal in favour of the questions as they stand and it terms of answers I'm confident that we're providing a large range of choices that should appeal to everyone. That being said, I wouldn't mind the addition of a "don't know" answer option (or something of the same effect), however I don't think it is 100% necessary. Also I don't think a "neutral" option is necessary either for question #4. The government is either responsible or not, aside from the varying degrees of "somewhat" and "very", there is no "neutral" degree.

I agree with Cam, I think it definitely would make sense to remove the neutral option for question 4, since it's kind of redundant to answer "neutral" to that specific question. I think answering "neutral" is probably the same as answering "somewhat" responsible. We could add a "don't know" option in place of "neutral" . Also, I have some concerns with question 1:

1. What cause do you attribute most to an individual experiencing extreme poverty and homelessness in Vancouver? Answers: 1. Consequence of poor personal decisions, 2. Victim of uncontrollable circumstances, 3. Failure of social system, 4. Mental illness or disability, 5. Other

The option "consequence of poor personal decisions" may be quite ambiguous. We may need to define what we think are "poor personal decisions" - Should we narrow this down? What do you guys think?

Also, do we all agree that removing the safe injection question altogether site is a good option?

Yes, I think it is fine to remove the safe injection site question. While it is obviously a controversial topic regarding the state of the Downtown East Side, I think it is probably safer to maintain our focus on poverty inequality so not to veer to far toward drug use.

If we are removing "drug use" as an option, I do believe that we need an alternative like "consequence of poor personal decisions." Whether the latter is the best alternative, I'm not sure. But I think it will do the trick.

That being said, I love all of the questions above, but I do believe providing a "don't know" option is necessary for ALL the questions.

Great work everyone! :D