Dissertation Survey

Hi everyone,

I'm currently in my last year of university and researching gardening culture as part of my dissertation. As part of my research I have created a survey to gain a better understanding of the gardening world. I would really appreciate if you took 5 minutes of your time to fill out my survey.

Here is the link: Gardening Survey

Thank you
Holly

 

This survey has been approved by GC staff

 

questions are a bit vague for gathering of info mind

 

Small observation:- Last question asks for rating 1 - 5?
There are only 4 options!

 

i thought that was just my counting

 

nice survey

 

I hate to be grumpy but I am full of lurgy so I'm giving myself special permission on this one occasion.

We see a lot of these surveys, and they are never well thought out. I started this one, as I start most, and I abandoned it part way through, as usual.

But in the interest of fairness, I'll give some pointers for information gathering via a the good old survey questionaire.

To get useful information, you must always run a pilot survey. You devise a few questions, not dissimilar to the ones in this survey, but don't make them multiple choice. You make them total open ended. You then find a small sample of people to ask to complete it. The sample should be as closely representative to your target as possible, so ideally in this case you talk to half a dozen or so real people you know, who look after a garden.

Having done the essential pilot survey, it will very quickly become apparent that the questions you ask in your pilot are not the ones that are going to get you any useful information. You may for example discover that many gardeners have no idea how much time they spend gardening, because they don't time it, they just do it. You may find that the question about monthly spend is pointless because many gardeners don't set aside a fixed monthly budget, or may even go many months with no expenditure but then suddenly spend several hundred (or thousand) pounds in one go.

What you will find is that so much diverse information, based on opinion, experience and personal preference comes flooding in that real questions will start to form in your mind, and those questions are the ones that should go into the main phase of the survey, as those are the questions that are most likely to get you anything even close to realistic answers.

Anyway, rant over. I'll go and drink a lemsip or something now.

 

Thanks for the advice Clueless1. I will take those points on board next time. My deadline in next week and I have lots of other research to do, so I don't have time to do a pilot survey, however in the next stage of my project I will do this.

Sorry about the last question not having the fifth option, that is a silly mistake. I can't change it now as it will mean deleting other survey respondent's answers and starting again, which I don't have time to do, otherwise I would change that.

Although the survey is very broad, and I have made that mistake on the last question, the results to this survey will give me a good overview of gardening culture, and I would be so grateful if you fill it out.

Thanks everyone

 

Have a read though some of the forums Holly, that'll give you a better overview

 

Armandii my survey is at the bottom of this thread if you would like to fill it out

 

I found it easy to complete. Too many surveys have strictly defined answers to choose from and very often none of them are applicable to me.

 

Holly I was happy to complete it even though it needed tweaking.:D:D

 

Thank you!