[LTER-diversity] request for feedback on Demographics and Perspective survey items

[Stacy Rebich Hespanha]

Hello Diversity Committee,

I’m looking forward to the call coming up on Thursday, and reaching out for your feedback on some survey materials that we are planning to pilot with the LTER Synthesis Working Group coming through for their first meeting in less than two weeks(!).

I am very interested in hearing your opinions and suggestions for the brief Demographics and Perspectives survey we are planning to give on the morning of the first day of the working group meeting. The draft questions we have currently offer some alternative ways to ask for certain types of information, and I would love to hear about which you think are more useful or appropriate ways to ask for these types of information. The survey questions are here: https://goo.gl/forms/rH6kAiLbHvULJMtj1

Below are a few specific questions I have:
Question 1: male, female, other… appropriate choices for this question?
Questions 2a and 2b: preferable to ask for specifics (2a) or simply provide binary choice (2b); if specifics desirable, how would you anticipate using this type of data?
Questions 3: preferable to use 3a-1 and 3a-2 to get specific info, or 3b as a binary choice similar to above? Again interested in how you would anticipate using the more detailed type of data.
Questions 10a,b,c,d will only appear for those who check ‘yes’ for Question 9, and which parts of 10 a survey taker will see will depend on how they respond to 10a. If you click through without selecting any answers, you should see all of the sub-questions. Note that I have used disciplinary categories from bepress Digital Commons (http://digitalcommons.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1008&context=reference), and anticipate shortening the list of Life Sciences options based on input from the NCO team later today.
Questions 12a,b are modified items from a thinking styles inventory. They are intended to identify respondents as having Synthesist, Idealist, Pragmatist, Analyst, or Realist thinking styles. However, they are only two items from a much more comprehensive instrument, so should not be over-interpreted in this context. I’m interested in piloting this type of question to see if there are relationships between these types of items and experiences participating in group activities such as synthesis working groups. Thoughts?
Should the ‘pages’ of this survey have titles, or be untitled? If titles, I welcome suggestions for pages that do not currently have titles. (Note that I do not have plans to number questions in final version; numbers are included for ease of reference here.)

I have also shared a copy of the draft of the survey questions we are planning to ask at the end of the first working group meeting. I do not have specific questions for you regarding these questions, but please feel free to weigh in on any of them if you have comments or ideas: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1klbEbvf0LpYOnNhPppdGMity97jqBeh9Ft1vuORQFKU/edit

Finally, I know that some of you may be interested in knowing more about how were planning to collect data, protect confidentiality, and distribute some type of summaries of these data. I have sketched out a rough plan for this, and shared this description. I welcome you comments on this as well! https://docs.google.com/document/d/1klbEbvf0LpYOnNhPppdGMity97jqBeh9Ft1vuORQFKU/edit

Thanks in advance for taking time to review these questions, and I look forward to discussing them more on Thursday!
Best wishes,
Stacy

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Stacy Rebich Hespanha, Ph.D.
Research Associate
National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis
University of California, Santa Barbara 93106-5065
www.nceas.ucsb.edu/~hespanha <http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/~hespanha>
805.893.7466   |   hespanha at nceas.ucsb.edu
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