Medicine Hat Vital Signs – Graders Needed
The fifth annual Medicine Hat’s Vital Signs will be made public on October 4, 2011, but the Community Foundation needs to hear what Hatters think of their city first.
Each year the Community Foundation publishes Vital Signs which looks at various components of life in Medicine Hat including Health & Wellness, Housing, Learning and Safety to name a few.
Residents are asked to go online to http://app.fluidsurveys.com/s/MHVitalSigns-2011/ and give their opinion on selected statements. These responses will be collected anonymously and collated in order to give a final grade, which will be published in the October publication. Residents have until Friday, August 26 to complete the survey.
We encourage all “Hatters” to participate in the survey and have their opinions heard.
Important note to media: the content of the survey is embargoed for publication until October 4, 2011.
August 16th, 2011 at 2:38 PM
Richard says:
There has got to be a way to write surveys that don’t suck. The questions given in the survey required you to answer with responses that on many occasions were incongruous with the information provided. In other areas there was a noticeable lack of a question. A list of statistical data is not a question, and when asked to respond to the data with a Happy, Concerned or Neutral standpoint it was hard to respond without there being context.
Ya, ok, we have more smokers in town…I’m concerned, not so bad. But show me the stats for Net Worth/Liability Comparisons and the data is too iffy to make any real emotional stance. Yup people are making more (Good) they are liable for more (Bad) they seem to have less assets (Bad) More disposable income (Good? WTF, when looking at lessening of assets.) But, overall a bad question when asking me if it’s (Good, Concerning or Neutral).
When you want to know what people feel about a specific topic, reduce your question down to a single objective. Do you eat pizza? Yes/No. In this way I don’t feel dirty or confused coming out the end of the survey. After all I can empirically state my opinion of pizza, but telling you how I feel about Leisure Trail Development Based on the number of metres put down doesn’t work because you’ve not given context. Has the city repaired 3800 metres as well as added 818 in 2010? Is the city revamping the current trail system in 2011? CONTEXT people. Granted if I go outside and look at the state of the trails around town I might still be inclined to be concerned since the existing trails are not showing much sign or repair or replacement, but the question provided was not about the level of repair, nor about any balance between new trails and repaired trail.
In conclusion a survey is supposed to help show a dataset of statistically relevant information based on the opinions of those taking the survey. What it is not supposed to do is shoehorn responses with poorly worded (simply not asked) questions, or response options that have no bearing on the question asked.
August 16th, 2011 at 2:50 PM
Richard says:
My references to “you” are to the people that wrote the survey. Now I’m happy to see them trying, do not get me wrong (based on the tone of my previous post) … but, care and attention need to be taken when asking opinions if you want your data to have value.
August 16th, 2011 at 3:24 PM
Community Foundation of Medicine Hat says:
Thank you Richard for your comments, each year we take the comments from the respondents and try to ensure we can adjust the survey so that it is the most user friendly.
The Vital Signs Project is a committee run project that relies on Volunteers from the community to oversee its entirety. We frequently have vacancies, to find out more visit our website at http://www.mhcf.ca or contact the office at 403-527-9038
Thank you again for your time.