I agree with these comments. The most pressing question I have after reading the poll is "where did these questions come from?" I assume they represent Luke's personal views, which suggests that there was a missing preliminary stage for such a survey, in which members were asked: "what do you consider to be the most pressing issues confronting the list?"
A second stage of questionnaire design might then have investigated alternative formatting. On that point, note that Luke's questions are sometimes contradictory, as when No.2 complains of "Marginalization of feminist... views" and No.11 notes "Excessive discussion of issues of sexism." That single issue might have been better served by a scaling-type question, ranked 1-10 in either direction. A scaling approach might better address Question No.6: "excessive posting of conference calls," to permit positive responses as well as negative ones.
FYI, I think the list might suffer from excessive variety, Off the top of my head, the categories of posts appear to include:1) community news and events (including obituaries and conference postings)2) key areas of design research, into: (a) design methodology or creative thinking
(b) the products of design or material culture (including 'immaterial' digital or interactive culture)
(c) critical design or art
3) hasty philosophical opinionating tossed off the top of the head with no research4) curriculae for design education
I myself am interested only in areas 1 and 2b.
And what I find missing, and would like to see more of, is detail about other people's PhD research. For example, wouldn't it be cool if there was a place where people could describe almost-finished literature reviews? This would not be of interest to all, but for some few readers it could open up precision discussion. Some of the participants in this group would be dream thesis advisors, able to point to missing foundational literature that would contribute to the neophytes' research, while newcomers to the list would hopefully offer fresh focus. In all cases, simple awareness of others' research directions would open up a world-wide high-level scan of the field.
And perhaps the only change potentially necessary to avoid list fatigue might be a two-part message title, as follows:
Category: Topic:
Leaving both open-ended at the discretion of the poster.
Regarding that idea, note that the title to Luke's post is exemplary in providing both a category (a poll) as well as a description of his topic. Very efficient, and most helpful.
Heidi O
D. Sless wrote:
"Luke, Back in the day when I learnt to do surveys, we were always taught not to use leading questions.
Richard Herriot replies:
I also declined to participate in the survey. You have more succinctly made the point I was trying to make. That said Luke´s was a helpful start to a discussion.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]>
Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
-----------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------
PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]>
Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
-----------------------------------------------------------------
