SURVEY QUESTIONS
Hey Guys, let's try to keep the survey questions organized. We had some excellent discussion in 'Focus our study,' but we need to keep our threads organized. I put the top three questions that we may have general consensus on at the top, and the others on the bottom. To keep them organized, please make new threads to discuss them with the heading including the number of the question and an abbreviated title on the top.
1. "Canada should increase funding to national defense and peacekeeping programs in order to improve/raise Canada's role in the international community"
2. Do you agree with Stephen Harper decision to extend Canada's mission in Afghanistan to 2014?
1. Strongly Agree 2. Somewhat Agree 3. Neutral 4. Somewhat Disagree 5. Strongly Disagree
3.Canada's mission in Afghanistan plays an important role in improving Canada-US relations. Should Harper's decision to withdraw by 2014 be influenced by our neighbor, considering the important role they play in our economy, defense and foreign policy in general.
1. Strongly Agree 2. Somewhat Agree 3. Neutral 4. Somewhat Disagree 5. Strongly Disagree
4.How strong would you say your knowledge is about the involvement of Canadians in Afghanistan
1. Very Strong 2. Strong 3. Neutral 4. Weak 5. Very Weak
Jonathan, I think the first 3 questions look great for our survey. What do everyone else think? If there is a consensus among our group members, then we could post the first 3 questions in the main page and then proceed to discuss the remaining 2 questions. Any ideas or suggestions?
I think the first three are perfectly fine, but I posted a question on another thread as what I believe to be a good starting question.
I like the first and third questions, but I think the second is too case specific if we are looking at defense policy.
I also think that, at this point, Canada's role in Afghanistan is more peacekeeping rather than national defense.. even though there is the potential for terrorist threats. Can we curtail a question to fit more into defense? I think someone mentioned earlier a question asking about Canadian's attitudes about the war in Afghanistan had the terrorist attacks happened in Canada rather than the United States.
We could ask a more general question like, "Initially, did you support Canada joining in the war on Afghanistan? 1. Very supportive... 5. Very unsupportive "
"Had the 2001 terrorist attacks happened in Canada, how supportive would you have been to declaring war on Afghanistan? 1. Very supportive... 5. Very unsupportive "
I agree with Amy in that maybe we are asking a question that is too specific, assuming that everyone knows about Harper's plans to extend the mission...we could still ask this question but add a sentence of information/background, but that might throw off the results or cause the question to lose credibility.
A more general question like the one Amy posed would be good, but "initially" can be tricky sometimes because people cannot always remember how they felt in 2001, they are more apt to just state their feelings now, after being influenced by media, other people's opinions e.t.c. so I think we should stay away from "initial thoughts and feelings" and focus either more on their opinion now, or their set of priorities
There seemed to be pretty strong consensus among members as to the first and third questions being part of our survey. I put those two up on the main page as two questions that seem like they are going to be in our survey.
I think I agree with Amy on reformulating the second question to be more general, maybe Canadians won't know that Harper extended the mission, so I agree that looking at it more generally is better
The 3rd and 4th questions could be altered. First, the first statement is way too normative. Second, knowledge isn't the easiest thing to quantify.
Question 3:
a) How important is Canada's relationship with the U.S.?
1.Very Important 2. Important 3. Somewhat Important 4. Not important 5. No comment
b) Prime Minister Stephen Harper extended Canada's mission in Afghanistan to 2014. Do you agree or disagree with this decision?
1. Strongly Agree 2. Agree 3. Neutral 4. Disagree 5. Strongly disagree
Maybe then you sterilize the normativeness and can then observe some interesting correlation afterwards.
For Question #4:
Approx how many Canadians are in Afghanistan? Who are we fighting in Afghanistan? Who are we primarily fighting alongside? How many Canadians have been killed in Afghanistan?
Based on these questions, from 1-5, how knowledgeable are you of the Canadian mission in Afghanistan?
1 2 3 4 5
I agree with Nadeem about the third question I think we should alter it but I think instead of just asking "How important is Canada's relationship with the US" We should ask "To what extent should the Canadian government take into consideration its relationship with the united states when making descions about Afghanistan"
Because i think the question should tie into defence to some extent and not be just how important is the relationship in general.
But i think B is a good question and we should definetly put it in there and then compare it to other answers they gave.
As far as the 4th question i dont think we should try to quantify at all people's knowledge on Afghanistan because we will never get an answer that is percise enough to use.
I feel that if you do not try to gauge peoples' interest in Afghanistan, one might not get a true indication of what they really know or feel, if person A says that he / she is interested in Afghanistan, the answers to the rest of question is likely to more indicative of what the person actually feels as opposed to someone who does not show any interest at all in Afghanistan and he / she tries to guess or just brushing off the survey as a waste of time - like what Jordan mentioned, if at least we know the level of interest the person shows in the poll, we can try and gauge what kind of responses they are likely to provide, though it could be random as well.
Balamurugan- I understand where your coming from and if we were writing a longer survey I would add it but since we only have 5 questions we need to use them as efficiently as possible and what are we gunna do if they say not interested throw there survey in the trash? I dunno though that could just be my opinion if other people are down for it then I am okay with it because I do think it is a good question I just dont know if it would be top 5 thats all.
Also I guess I got vetoed cause someone put question 3 on the board or whatever but I still think it starts with a normative statement and should be worded different. But if everyone else likes it Im ok with it.
"Canada should increase funding to national defense and peacekeeping programs in order to improve/raise Canada's role in the international community
Strongly disagree........Strongly agree"
A few of us had agreed on the restructuring of this question by Stephen. Perhaps you could add it to the list?
Ill try and add it!
I strongly suggest we begin posting questions on the main page - we have been getting some great ideas out there and we should post ASAP. Gordon has put up some very good ones in his thread. Kindly check those out and lets get some discussion on them.
Ben, I have separated peacekeeping and defense in that threat and you may find the format interesting. We need to see if people think we can develop Afghanistan as a self sufficient country - and then ask - does that make us safer?
Also, the defense issue comes from NATO's Article 5 which stated - after 9/11 - that we were obligated to join the coalition forces. Many would agree with this I believe, but their mixed views on long term will separate which Canadians view this as a favourable or unfavourable endeavour in a war-torn country.
Jacqueline - on the main board questions 1 and 3 are similar except for the fact that question 1 emphasizes reputation while question 3 emphasizes role. Perhaps we could take one of the questions out since they are worded exactly expect for the above-mentioned 2 words. Perhaps we could decide on which is a more effective question?
Does it matter which order we post the questions on the main page? If it does, we should probably also consider the fact that answers to our questions will also be influenced by the order in which they are posed. For example, a question inquiring about the survey taker's knowledge of Afghanistan might make him/her hesitant to answer other questions if it is posed at the beginning of the survey and conversely, if it is posed at the end of the survey it might make the survey taker seem overconfident of their knowledge pertaining to Afghanistan and cause more participants to rate themselves as highly knowledgeable.
Also, I think the first question might need to be rephrased in a way to make it seem more neutral; it might put pressure on answerers because it implies an answer (that increasing Canada's participation in the international community is a good thing and therefore funding should be increased). Maybe we could isolate the two concepts of "increasing funding to national defense and peacekeeping programs" and "increase Canada's role in the international community" into two different questions?. Or perhaps even remove "increasing Canada's role in the international community" altogether.
Yea, we can edit the order at the end, just wanted to throw up some questions on there seemed to be some general consensus among some members.
If the first question seems a bit invasive we could put a clause before the question that reads something like this "our intent is not to seem invasive or judge on whether or not you believe Canada should participate more in the international community, it is simply used for research purposes only"
Clauses like this can help make our questions seem not as invasive, and can ease the respondent into the question and make them feel more comfortable. It is a common technique used in many research studies. We could try something like that? or if you guys feel its still invasive we can perhaps remove it like Chris suggested.
Thoughts?
Balamurugan - Yeah I'm pretty sure 3 was somehow born out of 1 so we could go with either one but me and some others liked the restructuring slash wording of 3 better so i put it up for people to contest but if you are better with 1 or other people are Im okay with either.
so are we in favor of either 1 or 3 and for sure 2 on main board? does anyone want both 1 and 3? I agree with Balamurugan that putting both is a waste of the question and my vote is for 3 what do others think??
I think having a clause would certainly help to ease the respondents and let them know this is purely for research and in turn might allow them to answer the survey questions in a more relaxed and non-biased way? Any thoughts or comments? Or if everyone thinks that its invasive, we could restructure the question as: Canada should increase its defense budget to invest in new military technologies which would increase the capabilities of the Canadian Armed Forces. (Just a thought - feel free to comment and or critique.
1. Strongly Agree 2. Somewhat Agree 3. Neutral 4. Somewhat Disagree 5. Strongly Disagree
It's a political poll, it should ask people tough questions. A "don't worry I'm not judging you" disclaimer sounds silly,
Gordon, it does not means that one has to ask tough questions because it is a political poll and there is nothing silly when it comes to polls, you want to get a honest / truthful opinion of what he / she thinks of something basic before moving on to the potentially more difficult questions. I am sure if you observe many polls or surveys, they all start off easy and most of the times, it starts off with a question that gauges their interest in the topic matter at hand.
Yeah, I agree with Balamurugan. The goal is to obtain as many honest opinions as possible and therefore it would make sense to ease off on the initial questions in order to make the survey seem less intimidating. A lot of surveys incorporate disclaimers.
I agree with Bala. Those clauses are used in just about every survey I have ever taken. It also said to use these clauses in one of our readings to ease people into the question. Its not so much about tough...because I have no problem with asking tough questions...its that you got to think of it in respect to the person taking the poll. We can't ask such hard or 'tough' questions to the point where they don't want to participate at all. We may push the surveyor away which is the last thing we want to do. Its not about easing off from being tough, because the tough question is still there, its just about making the respondent feel both respected and comfortable with the survey, otherwise he may resist going on with the questions at all.
I like Balamurugan's question as well. I also agree with Chris in making sure we order the questions appropriately. I still think question 1 is appropriate to begin. If his question is added, that will put us at...3 questions?
I don't understand where the thread came about that we should choose either 1 or 3. The first question is asking about Canada's priorities concerning defense, and the 3rd (Jacqueline's version) is asking about US-Canadian relations concerning defense.. I like both of them.
Also, like I said a bit ago, I still like Jon's idea of comparing priorities in protecting borders (Canadian Arctic) versus... peace-keeping missions to prevent threats (like Afghanistan). It would be interesting to see where Canadians' values are?
What about starting with question one... and finishing with a question 3 and then a question on Afghanistan. The 2 in the middle can be more broad such as:
should canada increase its peacekeeping role in the world? (which could lead into..) should canada spend more on offensive military capabilities or defensive?
I think the questions on Afghanistan are great. I believe 2 or 3 of them should be devoted to more general concerns and arctic issues. Below is an article on the fact that unlike Afghanistan - the Arctic holds Canadians who are in dire situations and impoverished - along with being under a threat of annexation by Russia,etc. as reported by the media recently.
"To many Canadians, cultural, linguistic and environmental security are as important as national security"
Can someone try and post something on this on the main page? Or propose one here? I really like the one listed above.
I also agree with Bala, we need to make sure we don't make anyone uncomfortable, and in any case these people are doing us a favour by answering questions so it's only right to respect them and not try to upset/annoy them in any way, even if that means being extra cautious.
Also, should we be considering what we're trying to answer? I mean of course we're talking about defense, and if we focus on Afghanistan and the Arctic, is our goal to see what people support most? I don't know if I'm getting ahead of myself, I like these 3 questions, but I guess I'm just thinking in my head what our aim is now, what exactly we want to compare and what kind of questions we want people to answer that will allow us to gauge public opinion about a particular question.
Loll or maybe you've all done that and I'm lost in these threads, in that case I apologize!