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Helmet use: attitudes and beliefs survey

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
easiski wrote:
slider_tom, Personally (and nothing to do with the survey), I get fed up with the assumption that speed is an essential part of being expert! It's done all the time and not all expert skiers wish to ski fast all the time! Very Happy
Hi Easiski.
As you may have guessed, I have put the specific questions above so that there is some debate. Like you I do not equate the ability to stay above the skis in marginal control at high speed as a sign of skill - more like a mental illness with inadequate medication but I digress.

Getting back to skiing level scales. We have had on person (flangesax) complain that there were not enough divisions between the top two grades, another (clarky999) that there were not enough between the two middle ones...

So, the point i was trying to make is that if you got 4 skiers of somewhat different standards they will quite likely come up with 4 different arbitrary scales of ability that would help THEM make their choice.Smile
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
roga wrote:
Sorry, I started but gave up a few pages in - I found some of the questions and their phrasing thoroughly annoying and ridiculously repetitive and I'm not wasting my time answering questions about what my mates etc think over and over and over and over again when I don't give a toss what they or anyone else thinks - at the very least you need a "none of the above" option.

I wouldn't claim to be an expert but part of my degree was in sampling methods etc and I'm afraid this is one of the poorer surveys I've seen (and I include ones I've filled in out of the goodness of my heart for GCSE BTEC students - they at least were shorter!)

For the record I wear a helmet when on snow but as far as I'm concerned if adults choose not to then that's their choice and they shouldn't be forced to against their will.

Sorry that you got so upset, however I do believe that it says somewhere before you start the survey that it will take around 20 minutes. In fact it appears that it takes around 20 minutes...

Not giving
Quote:
a toss
is a fantastic attitude to life - i heartily recommend it!Smile
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 Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
slider_tom,
That sounds about right ... especially having read some of the threads just dedicated to 'grading' on snowheads.
So it is obviously a bad thing to rely on. So it should have been considered. So the survey should have a better question or method for the analyst to label the participants ability.

Why not have included questions that ask the participants to identify their skiing or boarding habits.
Then the decision of ability level can be decided by you guys rather than the stupid punter like me.

This survey is for a Masters so IMO it should be a little better.
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flangesax wrote:
slider_tom,
Why not have included questions that ask the participants to identify their skiing or boarding habits.
Then the decision of ability level can be decided by you guys rather than the stupid punter like me.


Maybe the question is not how good a skier/boarder actually is (according to psychologists) but, rather, how good the skier/boarder (or stupid punter) perceives themselves to be, and whether this predicts helmet use?
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
slider_tom wrote:
Sorry that you got so upset,

Did I?
Quote:
however I do believe that it says somewhere before you start the survey that it will take around 20 minutes. In fact it appears that it takes around 20 minutes...

I have no problem with 20 minutes of well worded and non repetitive questions but that wasn't what was presented in the survey. One question about what friends/mates/family think about helmet use is bearable, the point is the questions are badly worded, don't have enough options and the "what do others think" theme is repeated ad infinitum. If I were of a suspicious nature I'd be thinking there was some sort of agenda behind this line of questioning but being a kind soul I'm presuming the survey was put together by someone with little or no previous experience of this kind of thing. However, as a result of the line the survey takes the results will inevitably be skewed and IMHO will be worthless so if your research is more than just a bit of amateur dabbling I'd suggest you go back to the drawing board and put together a properly thought out and worded questionnaire because this one will be easily torn to pieces by those more expert than myself!
Quote:
Not giving
Quote:
a toss
is a fantastic attitude to life - i heartily recommend it!Smile

Thanks but I give a toss about many things, I just don't give one about whether others think I should wear a lid or not whilst skiing!
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roga wrote:
slider_tom wrote:
Sorry that you got so upset,

Did I?
Quote:
however I do believe that it says somewhere before you start the survey that it will take around 20 minutes. In fact it appears that it takes around 20 minutes...

I have no problem with 20 minutes of well worded and non repetitive questions but that wasn't what was presented in the survey. One question about what friends/mates/family think about helmet use is bearable, the point is the questions are badly worded, don't have enough options and the "what do others think" theme is repeated ad infinitum. If I were of a suspicious nature I'd be thinking there was some sort of agenda behind this line of questioning but being a kind soul I'm presuming the survey was put together by someone with little or no previous experience of this kind of thing. However, as a result of the line the survey takes the results will inevitably be skewed and IMHO will be worthless so if your research is more than just a bit of amateur dabbling I'd suggest you go back to the drawing board and put together a properly thought out and worded questionnaire because this one will be easily torn to pieces by those more expert than myself!
Quote:
Not giving
Quote:
a toss
is a fantastic attitude to life - i heartily recommend it!Smile

Thanks but I give a toss about many things, I just don't give one about whether others think I should wear a lid or not whilst skiing!

Hi Roga,
I guess that you do not have much experience in participating in quantitative psychological surveys, and this explains your frustration and assumptions. There is always an agenda behind direction of questioning - in this case it is to find out what are people's attitudes and beliefs with respect to wearing or not wearing a helmet while sliding on snow.

The results of any and all surveys are skewed - it is part of their nature. And, if you think that someone who is designing a survey for an MSc has not vetted and verified said survey by people higher up the food chain before it goes live on the University server - well not sure what I should think about that.
rolling eyes
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Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
roga wrote:
slider_tom wrote:
Sorry that you got so upset,

Did I?


Quote:
I found some of the questions and their phrasing thoroughly annoying...


Isn't being thoroughly annoyed the same as being upset?
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Quote:

I guess that you do not have much experience in participating in quantitative psychological surveys, and this explains your frustration and assumptions.

slider_tom, Patronising. Maybe he just thinks the same as many other intelligent people, that the survey is a ball ache - never mind the science behind it, it needs to be snappier and more clearly delivered. You asked for input, people freely gave up their time for no reward and now you're being patronising.
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miranda wrote:
flangesax wrote:
slider_tom,
Why not have included questions that ask the participants to identify their skiing or boarding habits.
Then the decision of ability level can be decided by you guys rather than the stupid punter like me.


Maybe the question is not how good a skier/boarder actually is (according to psychologists) but, rather, how good the skier/boarder (or stupid punter) perceives themselves to be, and whether this predicts helmet use?


I like that - it seems to make sense to me. Actually, whether the skier/boarder has children probably also has a great influence on helmet wear. After all, most parents insist their kids wear helmets, so they mostly wear them themselves to set an example. Very Happy
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slider_tom, every year we see a few muppets posting here who want us to help them with their research project. Usually their questionnairres are badly worded, badly laid out and have an extremely dubious sampling methodology. Many of us have done quantitave research in proper scientific environments. If you are doing meaningful quantitative research you need to do everything possible to eliminate sampling bias unless your stated goal is to look at how the attitudes of forum users differ from a control group. If your supervisor has not fed this back to you - you need to change supervisor.

You need to wind your neck in. You want something from us, not the other way round.
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Quote:

You need to wind your neck in.

Wouldn't that affect the fit of the helmet?
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
fatbob, stoatsbrother, I really am not convinced the derivation of the sample is important so long as you are not extrapolating the results as representative of the general population i.e. getting qualitative rather than quantitative data.
In this case, the bias is acceptable if you are trying to understand the psychology of individuals within the general population (what factors may drive helmet wearing in particular groups) rather than how many fall into one group or another, and the former seems to be the point of the surevey (and repetitive questions help to ensure consistency, but are hellish boring).

P.S. I do work in a scientific environment.
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beequin, my exact point in my first post on this thread.

He however says he is after Quantitative data not Qualitative...
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
PJSki wrote:
roga wrote:
slider_tom wrote:
Sorry that you got so upset,

Did I?


Quote:
I found some of the questions and their phrasing thoroughly annoying...


Isn't being thoroughly annoyed the same as being upset?

I didn't cry about it! Wink
slider_tom wrote:
Hi Roga,
I guess that you do not have much experience in participating in quantitative psychological surveys, and this explains your frustration and assumptions. There is always an agenda behind direction of questioning - in this case it is to find out what are people's attitudes and beliefs with respect to wearing or not wearing a helmet while sliding on snow.

Well whatever, I'm not repeating what I said above and if you want to ignore comments and feedback then no worries (and I'm not the only person who has said similar things).

Yeah, my experience was more on the sociological and statistical side of things but not sure why or how your 'scientific' "quantitative psychological surveys" should be so very different to what I recall of my experience of similar non-scientific surveys but I'll just have to live with that lack of knowledge and avoid such surveys in the future I guess just in case I get "upset" because I apparently have no experience of them rolling eyes Laughing
Quote:
The results of any and all surveys are skewed - it is part of their nature. And, if you think that someone who is designing a survey for an MSc has not vetted and verified said survey by people higher up the food chain before it goes live on the University server - well not sure what I should think about that.
rolling eyes

No probs, I'm sure they, and you, know better than anyone else Smile

Best of luck with the survey ...
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Bode Swiller wrote:
slider_tom, Patronising. Maybe he just thinks the same as many other intelligent people, that the survey is a ball ache - never mind the science behind it, it needs to be snappier and more clearly delivered. You asked for input, people freely gave up their time for no reward and now you're being patronising.

I'd tend to agree with all of that!
stoatsbrother wrote:
slider_tom, every year we see a few muppets posting here who want us to help them with their research project. Usually their questionnairres are badly worded, badly laid out and have an extremely dubious sampling methodology. Many of us have done quantitave research in proper scientific environments. If you are doing meaningful quantitative research you need to do everything possible to eliminate sampling bias unless your stated goal is to look at how the attitudes of forum users differ from a control group. If your supervisor has not fed this back to you - you need to change supervisor.

You need to wind your neck in. You want something from us, not the other way round.

The question is should he wind his neck in:
a. a bit
b. a little bit more
c. quite a lot
d. totally

Personally I'd vote d but I'm not sure what my friends, family, dogs, cats etc think about the issue, although I suspect they don't give a monkeys! Madeye-Smiley


Last edited by Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name: on Tue 20-07-10 12:00; edited 1 time in total
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 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Bode Swiller wrote:
Quote:

I guess that you do not have much experience in participating in quantitative psychological surveys, and this explains your frustration and assumptions.

slider_tom, Patronising. Maybe he just thinks the same as many other intelligent people, that the survey is a ball ache - never mind the science behind it, it needs to be snappier and more clearly delivered. You asked for input, people freely gave up their time for no reward and now you're being patronising.

Hi Bode Swiller,

I (and this is not even my study) am grateful for people giving up their time to answer the survey.
I was not intending to be patronising, but I guess that is how it came over. Sorry that you feel that the science should not drive the study.
It would have been much easier if the framework for the study was different, unfortunately it is as it is.Smile
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slider_tom, what are the significant dates with respect to this survey and to the study that the survey is part of? When should we expect to see some results published here on Snowheads?
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 Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Quote:

Sorry that you feel that the science should not drive the study.

slider_tom, no, be scientific of course, but the way a survey is written is a communication issue.
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stoatsbrother wrote:
pam w wrote:
Quote:

your sampling method sucks.

depends what he's trying to examine, I suppose. Clearly the sampling method wouldn't be suitable to reach any general conclusions abut "people who ski". But they might provide some interesting insights into the thinking of a self-selected sample of people who are sufficiently interested to fill in a rather tedious online survey about helmets.


your sampling is worse that his... Wink you missed out

Quote:
I hope this is purely qualitative research


ie non-quantified research aiming to gather ideas and thoughts

easiski - what fatbob says. The lack of statsistical literacy in a population which is bombarded with survey results and statements of risks is a genuine problem these days.



The survey can give a directionally quantitative view of what UK skiing-enthusiasts and thought-leaders think of helmets.

As you say, though, the self-selection and sampling is open to criticism.
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 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
slider_tom wrote:


As part of a study that tries to discover some of the reasons why people may or may not wear helmets when they are skiing and/or snowboarding, a questionnaire has been designed that seeks your personal opinions about the use of helmets in snow sports.



Skiing helmet usage is now around the same point that motorcycling and bicycling was in the western world 10 to 30 years ago.

The suppliers and buyers of ski helmets in rich countries are realizing en masse that skiing is a sport that involves speeds of 5 to 60 mph in close proximity to hard immovable objects.

Hence, the regular wearing of helmets will rise from roughly 1% of all skiers / boarders worldwide in 1980 to perhaps 20% in 2010 and 80% by 2050 (if there is any snow left).

The herd effect has already taken off and helmet usage is snowballing.
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Quote:

The survey can give a directionally quantitative view of what UK skiing-enthusiasts and thought-leaders think of helmets.

Except some of us are not in the UK!

Could have done with a question asking if we work in the snowsports industry - some of us have to wear helmets at work, and some of us require that our clients do.
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skinanny wrote:
Quote:

The survey can give a directionally quantitative view of what UK skiing-enthusiasts and thought-leaders think of helmets.

Except some of us are not in the UK!

Could have done with a question asking if we work in the snowsports industry - some of us have to wear helmets at work, and some of us require that our clients do.

Hi skinanny,
I thought that the sentiment - i.e. 'I have to wear a helmet' is present in the survey, and dividing the sample further into those who have to wear helmets because it is a condition of employment or those who have to because it is in the rules (e.g. of competition) seemed unnecessary.Smile
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slider_tom, sorry, it's been a couple of days since I filled out the survey.
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slider_tom, You're holding your own there! How many people DIDN'T read that it's NOT slider_tom,'s survey, and that it for psychology which is going to automatically mean that it will be dull, repetitve and fairly pointless (sorry Mary)!
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easiski, and that makes the survey methodology and his approach better how?

Psychology is absolutely fascinating btw.
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Come on, he did warn at the begining that some of the questions are repeatative for a reason!

Again, my only compalin was about off-piste and park being not all that differnet, and wish I have a "same as on piste" button. Otherwise, I endured the repeatative questioning...
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Quote:

helmet usage is snowballing.

we weren't asked about using them for snowballing. Is it too late now?
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You know it makes sense.
paulio, brilliant! Where did you get that? Laughing

Poor old slider_tom, strikes me he is being given an excessively hard time. snowHeads are always extraordinarily eager to proffer gratuitous advice, aren't they? All he asked was for people to complete the survey, not to lecture him/his wife on their life's work.
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paulio wrote:
Helmet pics

Now this explains where It has been going wrong all along...Smile
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 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
abc wrote:
Again, my only compalin was about off-piste and park being not all that differnet, and wish I have a "same as on piste" button. Otherwise, I endured the repeatative questioning...


that in itself is interesting because i see off piste and park as being v different in terms of potential for breaking my skull
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Hurtle... did you honestly think anything else would happen... Laughing Laughing

Quote:

And, if you think that someone who is designing a survey for an MSc has not vetted and verified said survey by people higher up the food chain before it goes live on the University server - well not sure what I should think about that.


Just because something is vetted or verified doesn't mean it is unquestionably perfect... especially in a Masters where people are marked and then pass or fail...
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I used an established and well-tested questionnaire developed by a partnership of an eminent psychologist and statistician (that has spawned much interesting research and some respected books). I didn’t change a word of it and got very similar feedback from one or two people to that above (not quite “poorer than GCSE B-Tech” but the boring, repetitive, not specific enough here, too specific there, weird questions, ballache, etc.)... because easiski is partly right - the practicalities of psychological study can be dull and repetitive… you do have to check consistency in human response by repeating questions with alternative scaling, re-repeating questions across each and every condition, separating out distinct mediators rather than lumping them all together… have to disagree about psychological research being “fairly pointless” though!

Sampling is a problem for students and is acknowledged when discussing limitations of the findings. I hope the novel aspect of Mary's study turns out some useful results that suggest full research is warranted and, off the back of it, gets some funding to hang out at ski resorts around the world to access a better sample snowHead
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I can't be bothered to read the rest of the tread as I'm working as spent all my time doing this survey. I will ask my questions in the style of the survey

Was it written by a child?

Do you think it was written by a child?

Was it written by a child?

Are these questions almost exactly the same and immensly tedious?

Was it written by a child?
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A helmet thread that includes some psychological profiling! Now there's a first. Reckon I must be bi-polar; I own a helmet but never wear it, I go into shops and covet helmets (especially Sweet) but know that if I bought one I wouldn't wear it. My son wears a helmet of his own volition and couldn't care less about the "parents setting an example" thing yet I get people asking my why he's wearing one and I'm not... Which just makes me want to kill them. When we go biking it's a different matter as we both wear bike helmets and then I got the comment the other day that "I was setting the right example"... Which also made me want to kill them. Clearly I have some very deep helmet-related issues to resolve. I just hope the survey result helps me. Help.
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Also on what planet would "Difficulties in hiring a helmet" make me more likely to wear not buy one?
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Bode Swiller wrote:
I go into shops and covet helmets . Clearly I have some very deep helmet-related issues to resolve.


Laughing
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Arno wrote:
abc wrote:
Again, my only compalin was about off-piste and park being not all that differnet, and wish I have a "same as on piste" button. Otherwise, I endured the repeatative questioning...


that in itself is interesting because i see off piste and park as being v different in terms of potential for breaking my skull

You and I can have very different opinion about it. That's fine and I hope the survey captures the difference.

But instead of forcing me, who thought those 3 are rather indifferent, to go through each and every one of the ALREADY repeaticious questions TWO MORE times, they could have allow the option of "same as on piste"! Those who thought it's vastly different will still be allow to go through the questions one by one, outlining how differently they would behave...

I see that as the weakness of this line of questioning. I'm not a psychologist by any stretch of imagination. But I would think just the very extreme repeaticious nature of the questioning itself is creating THE BIGGEST bias toward certain pool of samples!
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I think perhaps the point of the survey is the relationship between the answers to similar but slightly different questions, rather than the actual answers themselves, and likewise how a 'vague' question is answered in comparison with a more 'specific' question. For example I am sure there is relevance in comparing how I view my risk with how 'I believe' others view my risk etc.

Probably all a bit too subtle for most on here wink
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rayscoops, maybe, or maybe I get bored easily wink
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