From: Tom Cloyd Date: 2009-11-11T07:11:14+09:00 Subject: Re: Programmers motivation: academic research Robert Klemme wrote: > On 10.11.2009 15:30, James Edward Gray II wrote: >> On Nov 10, 2009, at 1:58 AM, Mark Pith wrote: >> >>> Dear Ruby community, >>> >>> We are researching the motivation factors of Open Source software >>> programmers and would like to ask your cooperation in our large-scale >>> research. >> >>> Please follow the link to the online survey. >> >> I took the survey, but this was my final comment: >> >> This questionnaire is very repetitive. Questions like "Will working >> on this project get me a better job?" or "Does working on this >> project increase my reputation?" are asked many different times in >> almost the exact same way. >> >> It would probably be less of a commitment, and as such more >> programmers would be willing to answer, if you could eliminate the >> repetition. > > I haven't looked at the survey but it is common practice to state the > same question differently more than once in order to calculate an > indicator of the consistency of answers. If consistency falls below a > certain threshold the result is discarded because it is assumed that > the person taking the questionnaire either picked random values or did > not fully concentrate on the survey. > > Kind regards > > robert > > I want to offer agreement with Robert's comment. As someone with formal training in psychometrics I can assure you "measure twice (or more), cut once" is a well validated and approved of practice in psychological and sociological research, and most especially in research involving subject response, as opposed to researcher- or instrumentation-evaluation or measurement. In a word, repetition confers reliability of measurement. Without that, research of any kind is pointless. It's unfortunate, of course, that research subjects sometimes protest about the experience this necessary measurement convention gives them. The only fix for this is a research instrument that is so clever that the repetition is not noticed, and that's not easy or cheap to develop. No easy solutions, here. I have to hope that folks here will do the survey for the sake of assisting the researchers, whose intent, we may fairly assume, is to increase our understanding of this important and most interesting community. Tom -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Tom Cloyd, MS MA, LMHC Private practice Psychotherapist Bellingham, Washington, U.S.A: (360) 920-1226 << tc@tomcloyd.com >> (email) << TomCloyd.com >> (website) << sleightmind.wordpress.com >> (mental health issues weblog) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~