Q5. Which of the following sustainable practices do you do on a regular basis:
Which of the following sustainable practices do you do on a regular basis: -recycle -use reusable food/beverage containers -use reusable bags -compost -take public or alternative modes of transportation -buy local products -use energy-efficient lighting and/or appliances
1 of the above, 2 of the above, 3 of the above, 4 of the above, 5 of the above, 6 of the above, 7 of the above.
- I just threw this question up here because we've discussed asking people not only about their sustainability beliefs but also about their actual practices or their actions. I do feel this question needs work and perhaps some rephrasing as I'm not sure how reliable the answers we get will be or even how reliable it is to depend on people self-reporting... I thought of using a question where you could 'check all that apply' but I think that will be more difficult to enter as binary data (if you take into account all the possible combinations possible...). Any ideas on how to make this better?
if we were to use a question such as this maybe the options should be put into ranges, 1)none of the above 2)1-3 3)4-6 4)all of the above
Perhaps the question could be phrased:
How many of the following sustainable practices do you do on a regular basis? (list the practices)
One of my concerns with this question is that people's differing opinions of "a regular basis." Another issue is the list of practices we choose to include, we may not include several key sustainable practices that people practice. It really depends on what we are trying to measure with this question, is it simply do people recycle? do people buy local? or is it how sustainable are people's behaviors? etc.
I think the range idea is very good, as is the theory behind the question. We could phrase the question differently however, to avoid the 'regular basis' queries you raised ShannonLee, by giving a time frame e.g
How many of the following sustainable practises do you partake in on a weekly/fortnightly/monthly basis? We could pick the time scale in which we wish to measure, depending on what is considered most appropriate.
Agreed. I also think it would be prudent to define alternative modes of transportation in case that term causes some confusion. Maybe listing some examples, such as biking, skateboarding, rollerblading, etc., would be the simplest way to do that.
I really like the question but lets make sure that we are not leaving out any practices that people may be doing and are not there. Thus someone could be using sustainable soaps, fertilizer etc and answer no when they are still practicing sustainable choices.
I like the direction of this question but I would suggest that we remove the part about buying local products. There is a lot of debate about this and I think one of the strongest arguments is that the best way to be sustainable is to buy food from regions where it grows best as it means the least amount of energy is used to produce the food. Sometimes the energy or agriculture-related emissions used to produce food locally is equivalent or more than the emissions used to transport it. This can also be applicable to to other products.
Instead of making this a multiple choice question, why don't we ask the respondents to place a check mark next to all the activities that they participate in? This way we don't have to include ranges in our answer options! Just a suggestion :)