Dear John,
Thank you very much for taking time to do the questionnaire and also for your comments below.
I understand your frustration when it comes to the multiple choice questions, and as you mentioned yourself, this is part of multiple choice questionnaire's downfalls.
However, when it comes to analysing the answers, my approach is to use factor analysis (as I describe in the introduction to the questionnaire). This relies on understanding the relationships between answers to different questions, indicating that when people answer strongly (+/-) to one question they generally do/do not answer strongly (+/-) to another, for example. This is how I will be aiming to understand the connections between each question I have asked, and will hopefully give a very broad indication of how people have answered questions that may depend on a set of variables.
I have tried to aim individual questions to understand importance of individual variables such as uniqueness, information content and preservation but due to the kind of analysis I am doing, including multiple variables within one question would be difficult to analyse. To gain a better understanding of the interconnections between state, preservation and information/value a subsequent stage in the project after this questionnaire will address the impacts change to state and preservation have on the values which will have been understood broadly from this questionnaire. The whole exercise is a very broad study of values in geological collections, and by no means do I think that I will have covered every variable.
In terms of adding a box at the end to capture extra comments, there was consideration to include this, however text answers need to be analysed differently and will take more time. I included one text answer box on what people class as 'information' as I felt this was a concept largely addressed during the survey but no-where actually defined. I hope to analyse this by collecting key words used by respondents to define how people understand 'information' in specimens to help better analyse my results.
Due to the time limit on the whole project (the thesis is due early September) I had to be very selective with what was included in the questionnaire so that I would have time to analyse it and complete the follow up work I mentioned above before writing up.
I hope what I have discussed here has been useful to you. Thank you again for your comments and please feel free to add to this further.
Regards,
Jane
-----Original Message-----
From: The Geological Curator's Group mailing list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of John Faithfull
Sent: 12 June 2012 10:00
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: MRes Questionnaire: Attitudes to Geological Collections
Hi folks,
I've been wondering whether to start a thread on this, but as Giles has said something, here goes...
There are plenty of interesting issues touched upon during this survey. However, I found many of the questions, and permissable responses, at least slightly unsatisfactory.
I wanted to be able to say "but...", or "it depends what you mean..." alongside most answers. As a result, most of what I felt to be potnetially most useful in my responses was not captured by the survey.
You could argue that this is not important: it's part of the nature of multiple choice surveys. However, I think this was a significant issue in this particular case. Even a final box where comments relating to omissions, methodologies, or qualifications to responses could be provided would have been very helpful. Data gathering excercises like this need a degree of self-awareness as to their scope, and I found that this survey format was not very clear on this.
Cheers
John
PS Jane: I imagine you will see this response. I hope I'm not being unfair in raising this on this forum. However, I do think that public consultation exercises benefit from public, rather than private discussion about their scope and approach, and these are important and intersting questions. Hence this message...
Dr JW Faithfull
Curator (Mineralogy/Petrology)
Hunterian Annexe
Floor 1
Thurso St Building
13 Thurso St
Glasgow G11 6PE
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Tel: +44(0)141 330 4213
Website: www.glasgow.ac.uk/hunterian
Hunterian Art Gallery refurbishment
The Hunterian Art Gallery is currently undergoing major refurbishment. Both the Art Gallery and The Mackintosh House are now closed to the public, re-opening on 15 September with a special new exhibition 'Rembrandt and the Passion'. The Hunterian Museum remains open as usual.
New permanent gallery:
The Antonine Wall: Rome's Final Frontier
Opening hours:
Tuesday - Saturday 10.00am - 5.00pm; Sunday 11.00am - 4.00pm
The Entire Collection cared for by The Hunterian is a Recognised Collection of National Significance to Scotland
University of Glasgow, charity number SC004401 A world Top 100 University, joint first in Scotland for student satisfaction and 5th in the UK
________________________________
From: The Geological Curator's Group mailing list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Giles Miller
Sent: 11 June 2012 10:19
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: MRes Questionnaire: Attitudes to Geological Collections
Thanks for forwarding that Mike. It touches on a couple of issues that I have recently blogged about:
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/natureplus/blogs/micropalaeo/2012/05/30/how-much-is-a-microfossil-worth
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/natureplus/blogs/micropalaeo/2012/05/01/hurrah-for-surrogate-loans
Jane it would be really interesting to see your results. Are you going to publish them?
All the best,
Giles
________________________________
From: The Geological Curator's Group mailing list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Howe, Michael P.A.
Sent: 06 June 2012 13:50
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: MRes Questionnaire: Attitudes to Geological Collections
I have been asked by Jane Robb of University College, London, to post details of a survey on the values associated with geological collections. Please have a look.
Thanks,
Mike Howe
Chair, GCG
"
As part of my MRes Heritage Science dissertation on values associated with geological collections I have designed and disseminated this questionnaire:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/geoattitudes
I would be grateful if you could take five minutes to complete the questionnaire on values associated with geological collections. A more detailed description of my MRes project and its aims is included in the questionnaire itself.
To increase the volume of responses, further dissemination of the questionnaire would be appreciated. If you know of other geoscientists or other professionals who are familiar with the use of geological collections then please forward this email. If possible, notifying GCG members about the presence of this questionnaire would be extremely useful.
If you have any questions please don't hesitate to get in touch with myself or my supervisors, whose contact details are provided in the questionnaire.
Yours sincerely,
Jane Robb
MRes Heritage Science Student
Centre for Sustainable Heritage
Bartlett School of Graduate Studies
University College London
Take a look at my Blog at:
http://geoheritagescience.wordpress.com/
Or visit my LinkedIn profile:
http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/jane-robb/48/392/275 <http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/jane-robb/48/392/275>
Twitter: @JLizRob
Email: [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
"
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