What do we want to measure?

We should be careful in choosing our five questions, is there any particular quality we want to measure?

Some possibilities are:

(1) Awareness of Poverty and Homelessness in Vancouver/Lower Mainland

(2) Feelings of personal responsibility (as in do they donate themselves, etc)

(3) Perception of the causes of Poverty and Homelessness in Vancouver/Lower Mainland

(4) Opinions of government Aid vs. Private Charity to aid the impoverished

We could ask questions to go towards this and many more groups, but I was wondering if anyone wanted to go towards a particular goal with our questions.

I agree that we might want to focus the questions a bit on some aspect of poverty. Remember, we only have 5! Of the above 4 choices, personally I'd like to focus on perceptions of the causes of Poverty and Homelessness in the Vancouver. Anyone else?

I like Jennifer's idea of focusing the question on the perceptions of the causes of poverty and homelessness in the Lower Mainland. Perhaps by incorporating an economic element to give the question more focused direction, we can focus the question on respondent's opinions towards a poverty reduction plan. As an example:

"Would you be willing to support a poverty reduction plan that includes provisions for income assistance for low-income earners?"

a.) Yes b.) No c.) Don't know

I like the idea presented by Jennifer McGowan on focusing our questions on the perceptions of the causes of poverty and homelessness. That seems like a really interesting direction to take the questioning, and moves away from the expected questions of what people believe should be done to fix the problem. It would be fascinating to see what people think should be done to prevent the issue from occurring to begin with.

I agree with you all as well in regards to framing the questions that will get the preceptions of the causes of poverty and homelessness, but I am also wondering if we focus only in vancouver, or do we broaden it to include the entire province?

I also agree with both Jennifer Samuels and Trevor, maybe it would be good to incorporate both a prevention question and also a possible solution question. Is this plausible? or too much?

I don't think it would be too hard to add a prevention and a solution question, the only concern is that we only get five questions, and that would be two, so it would be hard to get too much more detailed information on any other topic if that's how we've chosen to do this.

Yeah, 5 questions is not much to work with.

I do like Jenn S's idea of a question about a poverty reduction plan, and I definitely think we should focus one question on measuring 3) which Ekateryna suggested.

If we were to incorporate a poverty reduction plan into our question, I wonder if we would need to state the specifics of what this would entail (considering our respondents may want to satisfy their curiosity as to how/why such a plan may succeed).

For instance, should we include a follow-up question such as: "Which method of a poverty reduction plan would be most favoured by you?" A.) Increased provincial minimum wage B.) Increased provincial welfare payments C.) Decreased federal income taxation for those who fall below the national poverty line

(***I've just included a provincial/federal element here, but not too sure whether it's necessary...any thoughts?***)

Definitely a good idea with narrowing things down and framing the questions, just so we can all agree to which direction we are headed. Seems like we're all on the same page. We could definitely focus on Vancouver, seeing as most of the people being surveyed will be either from Vancouver or currently living here, hence they will have more insight to the matter.

I completely agree with you Christina about focusing on Vancouver. That way we can get more insight. Also, i think that we should definatly have a question regarding government assistance

I think focusing on Vancouver is a great idea for all the reasons previously stated. I prefer looking at what people think are good solutions to the problems that face the city's poor [close to #2 and #4 in Ekateryna's list of possibilities] so if we could have 3 questions on prevention and 2 on treatment I think everyone would get what they wanted out of the survey.

I also like Jennifer's idea. Focusing on the perceptions of the causes of poverty and homelessness in Vancouver would be a great starting point. I think it'd be also interesting to incorporate some elements from question #2 or #4 to see people's opinions about poverty reduction plan.

I agree with focusing our questions on Vancouver only. Let's see how many questions we think should be devoted to each "measure". I think we should have 3 on causes/prevention and 2 on fixing/treatment (where we would include one minimum wage question which we discussed in the other thread). State how you guys think the questions should be divided so we can get a general consensus on what we all want.

Opinions of government Aid vs. Private Charity to aid the impoverished ... or the feeling of responsibility

I definetly agree with focusing on Vancouver, this would be easier since different factors effect different cities and the local government deals with poverty differently in other cities. I also agree with rawan on having 3 on causes/prevention and 2 on fixing/treatment

focusing on vancouver makes a lot of sense and the results will be more credible this way.I second Rawan and Dalia 3 causes/prevention and 2 fixing/treatment this way the survey will be more comprehensive and expressive.

let's also have a very clear causal relation because this will be the bases for all the questions. Just so we don't divert

I think focusing on Vancouver specifically is a great idea because that way answers will be more credible and less general.

At the expense of sounding too repetitive, I agree with everyone above that focusing on Vancouver is the most ideal solution, thereby narrowing the breadth of our sample audience. This is significant, in that while it is important to be broad when generating a research question, it is also important to conceive a concise question that has a singular focus (the entire Lower Mainland may be too broad and diverse when it comes to issues of homelessness and poverty). I also agree with Hana's point that the results with a more centered focus will be more comprehensive and meaningful.