Summarizing our 5 [tentative] questions thus far

Alright guys. It's two days before the due date and it's time to tighten up. From my understanding, here are the five most pertinent questions we have come up with, in their current, tentative format:

1)Do you think that the Canadian Government should give priority mostly to immigrants who are able to invest financially into the country? Answers: 1. Yes 2. No

2)Do you believe immigration is a positive contirbutor to the Canadian economy? Answers: 1.strongly agree 2.agree 3.somewhat agree 4. disagree 5.strongly disagree

3)Do you believe that the policy of multiculturalism in response to immigration is a positive contributor to Canadian society? Answers: 1.strongly agree 2.agree 3.somewhat agree 4. disagree 5.strongly disagree

4)Which of the following types of immigrants should be given priority to immigrate to Canada? Answers: 1.Family Class 2.Economic Class 3.Refugees/Asylum Seekers 4.Prefer not to answer

5)Currently, Canada accepts 240,000-265,000 immigrants each year. Is this number: Answers: 1.Too high 2.Too low 3.About right

• Note that inclusion of the "Upon arrival" question seems to be up in the air right now.

If everyone is in agreement that these are the five questions we have most focused on and want to continue doing so (please correct me if I'm wrong), let's keep working on them in their respective threads. I just thought that I'd "step back" for a moment to make sure we're on track with the assignment for the due date :). Also, it may be worth noting that (1) and (4) are kind of similar. If we decide to keep both, we should consider the order in which we ask them since (1) will likely have the respondent considering ideas that will affect their answer for (4), ideas that otherwise would not have been elicited.

Pawel,

Crunch time... Are we expected to have our five questions finalized and in order by tomorrow?

In the interest of keeping things simple I'd like to withdraw my "Upon Arrival" line of questioning.

Also, I would propose that we order the above questions in the following order: 2), 3), 1), 4), and 5).

Thoughts? Votes?

Jaime

Great suggestion Jaime. But I would make a small change and suggest the order of 2,3,5,4,1.

My reasoning for this is that 2 and 3 coming prior to 5 will make the respondent consider the two most politically salient issues of immigration (regarding costs and benefits) on the population in general before answering our most general question regarding the respondent's opinion on immigration. 1 may result in people considering the positive effects of immigration so it should come last since the succession of questions 2 and 3, in my mind, influence a possibly neutral vantage point from which we want our respondents to answer subsequent questions. Finally, 4 should come before 1 because it may cause the respondent to consider all that we want him to consider for related question 1, whereas vice versa may not be true.

If this is satisfactory, in order to finalize our questions, what does everyone think of changing the possible answers of 4 to what I suggested in my last post in the "Who should be given priority?" thread?

Jaime and Robb:

I concur with Pawel's order of 2,3,5,4,1. Also, regarding changing the answers to #4, Pawel: I say let's do it because then we can come to know what choices our respondents choose in order of preference.

Thoughts everyone?

Hi All,

I agree with Pawel's order of 2,3,5,4,1. However, I feel #1 is a bit redundant since it's a follow up question to #4. We may as well be asking if the refugees should be given priority or those who seek for family reunification should be given priority.

There was another question asking if Canada's immigration policies should be reformed to be more generous or more strict. I believe that would be a good question to be included since it does speak about the issue of admission, which is our topic area.

So instead of #1, can we replace it with the question from "possible survey question" thread? Except perhaps rephrase the question so it is more suitable for our survey?

Or sorry, is that already #5 on our survey?

hi everybody,

i think so far we have 5 pretty good survey questions. I like Pawel's ordering of 2,3,5,4,1. The questions follow up smoothly, making it easier to answer, without any confusion. Even though number 4 and number 1 are questions similar in nature, please note that number one specifically refers to entrepreneurs and investors (please see the statistics for this question under "foreign investment" section). Thus, I believe they may be similar but have different outcomes. the foreign investment section solely concentrates on investments of min. 800,000 Canadian dollars, that would be invested into a Canadian business, creating more working spaces and also driving the Canadian economy up. It has a separate section in the Canadian Immigration Policy, solely created for investors/entrepreneurs, not necessarily a skilled worker. All in all i really like the outcome and i think so far we accomplished a lot. Great Job! :)

I have a quick suggestion to question#5, can we provide the percentage that number is to Canadian population? It just struck me that when we are doing the surveys, the respondents are randomly selected and they may or may not know how that number is relatively to our national population but rather to their own scale of number. By providing the national population next to the number of immigrants admitted each year, the respondents can provide a somehow more educated estimate of how they feel about the number. Does this make sense?

I agree with Yang, and really like that idea for question number 5. we could provide the national population which is around 35 million and say that: Currently, Canada accepts 240,000-265,000 immigrants each year, which corresponds to 0.69%-0.76% of the Canadian population. Is this number: Answers: 1.Too high 2.Too low 3.About right I think due to this comparison, people could give a more accurate answer. What do you guys think?

I agree with Yang. We should give respondents an idea of how relative 240,000-265,000 immigrants is, rather than just an absolute value. Unless we only ask other poli sci students (which wouldn't be a random sample and a pretty bad idea), we shouldn't make any assumptions on how familiar respondents are with Canada's population and immigration process. I think if we give them the percentage of the Cdn population, then it will lower the chances their answers are completely arbitrary. According to the Stats Canada website, as of October 2010, Canada's estimated population was: 34,238,035. So what does everyone think about rephrasing question to:

Currently, Canada accepts 240,000-265,000 immigrants each year, which is approximately 0.70-0.77% of the Canadian population. Is this number: Answers: 1.Too high 2.Too low 3.About right

I realize its late in the game but I would be interested in finding out whether the respondent lives in an area (neighbourhood) where he/she feels there is a high number of immigrants (already living there). For example:

Where I live there are high levels of immigrants:

1)Strongly Agree 2) Agree 3) Disagree 4) Strongly Disagree 5) Not Sure

I just think that people who live in Richmond and Surrey might generate a different response than people who live in Kistilano. I believe this would influence all answers but I am fully aware we can only ask 5 questions. Like Pawel said I think questions 1 and 4 are really similar.

It seems like lot's of folks are in support of changing (5), and Dana's suggestion seems to encompass the concerns over (5) voiced in this thread. So, I vote for Leyla and Dana's modification. Also, since no one's voiced anything against my proposal to change the possible answers of (4) to rank ordering, I'm going to input that as well as the aforementioned new (5) in this now-updated 5-question proposal:

1)Do you think that the Canadian Government should give priority mostly to immigrants who are able to invest financially into the country? Answers: 1. Yes 2. No

2)Do you believe immigration is a positive contirbutor to the Canadian economy? Answers: 1.strongly agree 2.agree 3.somewhat agree 4. disagree 5.strongly disagree

3)Do you believe that the policy of multiculturalism in response to immigration is a positive contributor to Canadian society? Answers: 1.strongly agree 2.agree 3.somewhat agree 4. disagree 5.strongly disagree

4)Currently, Canada accepts 240,000-265,000 immigrants each year, which corresponds to 0.69%-0.76% of the Canadian population. Is this number: Answers: 1.Too high 2.Too low 3.About right

• 5)Regarding the following three classes of immigrants admitted into Canada, family reunification (FR), economic migrants (EM), and refugee or asylum seekers (RAS), how would you rank the importance of these three classes of immigrants being admitted to Canada?

1.FR<EM<RAS 2.FR<RAS<EM 3.RAS<EM<FR 4.RAS<FR<EM 5.EM<RAS<FR 6.EM<FR<RAS 7.Prefer not to answer

• (5) looks a bit messy to me. Any suggestions on how to clean it up?

Lastly: I was writing this while Leo was also writing. What do people think of Leo's suggestion? I think it's good to vary up questions, but asking people about whether they think a lot of immigrants live in their neighborhood doesn't seem like it would lead to a very revealing answer. Maybe something about how they *felt* about immigrants living in their neighbourhoods? Also, if we change a question then we have to reconsider the ordering again...

Hey all, firstly, sorry I'm so late arriving to the game; secondly, I agree with Leo's premise that it would be cool to find out if the respondent lives in a high-density neighborhood of immigrants, but also agree with Pawel's response that it may not lead to as revealing or significant an answer that we'll need given our limited 5-question capacity. I also agree that questions 1 and 4 are similar enough that it might warrant some revisiting; by framing the first question in terms of immigration and finances we may be vectoring the respondent towards a certain set of responses; they might answer question four with question one already in the back of their mind, giving not a biased answer but one they might give in order to be congruous with their answer to the first question.

In response to 5 looking a bit unwieldy, perhaps we could look more at the respondent choosing which class of immigrant they think possesses the best eligibility for admission and ranking that in a '5. Strongly agree, 4. Agree...' kinda format. It doesn't give as complete information but it does narrow down the information we'd be receiving to be more manageable/malleable.

Pawel I agree its a better option to write how people "felt." I do think we need to change question 1... I am having a hard time coming up with anything other than geographic distribution of immigrants. If anyone has any other ideas please share.