 Poster: A snowHead
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Invitation to take part in a study of attitudes and beliefs regarding helmet use in snowsports.
The background to this study is the debate on whether helmets should be mandatory or not following high profile deaths from skiing in 2009. There is research to suggest that helmets may help reduce the risk of traumatic brain injury, the primary cause of death, and there is research suggesting that helmet use does not help reduce fatalities. While there appears to be a healthy body of research into the factors associated with snowsport injuries, I have not found anything to suggest why people wear or do not wear helmets when they are voluntary nor is there any clear evidence to suggest whether wearers are more risk-averse of risk-seeking. I am hoping to shed some light on this area through this project.
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. Please would you make your opinions known by completing this questionnaire, which can be found at http://www.fahs.surrey.ac.uk/survey/helmetuse/.
In order to understand your perspective about the use of helmets for snow sports, the questionnaire also asks questions about your snow sports experience, your current helmet use, your risk perceptions and attitudes towards sensation seeking. The questionnaire may take up to 20 minutes to complete, but as we are interested in your immediate reactions to various statements you should avoid spending too long on any one question.
Confidentiality
All the responses to this survey are completely confidential and will be completely anonymous since no identifying information is collected. The data will be treated in the strictest confidence and will be seen only by the research team.
This study is being conducted by Mary Ondrusz (email: mo00044@surrey.ac.uk) under the supervision of Dr Victoria Senior (email: V.Senior@surrey.ac.uk) as part of an MSc research project in health psychology at the University of Surrey.
We would really appreciate your participation in this study and hope that you will find it interesting. The questionnaire can be found at http://www.fahs.surrey.ac.uk/survey/helmetuse/.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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slider_tom, people round these here parts enjoy helmet threads. This should be well subscribed to.
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The background to this study is the debate on whether helmets should be mandatory or not following high profile deaths from skiing in 2009.
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Natasha Richardson was certainly high profile but the other lady that made the press died of a ruptured aorta - for some reason the press thought that could have been prevented by a helmet.
Helmet hysteria.
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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?
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I like 'wild' uninhibited parties (incl. clubbing).
Yes/No |
Only do the survey if you have 15 minutes to burn. Took ages.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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arv, yeah, and I though a lot of it was poorly phrased, repetetive (maybe deliberate) and not that sophisticated. Anyway, 100% of those taking part have their own head.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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The survey is dumb. "Helmet use generally" has the same question repeated five times. I got bored after page 8.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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| arv wrote: |
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I like 'wild' uninhibited parties (incl. clubbing).
Yes/No |
Only do the survey if you have 15 minutes to burn. Took ages. |
Secret swinger grooming questionnaire. "Helmet" = attitudes to "protection". Off-piste = draw your own conclusions, were there any questions about riding switch?
Last edited by You'll need to Register first of course. on Wed 14-07-10 17:38; edited 1 time in total
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Fifteen minutes and more...
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| boredsurfin wrote: |
| Fifteen minutes and more... |
Now that's just boasting
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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fatbob, he got stuck on "does it ruin your hair?"
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fatbob, now you mention it...
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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A lengthy survey, but at least it's possible to complete it because the questions are reasonable and realistic, unlike some surveys that get posted here.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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FWIW I have done your survey. I hope it helps, please come back and post the general feeling of the results later on.
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slider_tom, Good luck, you really don't know what you've done, do you?
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You know it makes sense.
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Megamum, Good point, well made
slider_tom, Please make sure you come back and give us the results.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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| Megamum wrote: |
| FWIW I have done your survey. I hope it helps, please come back and post the general feeling of the results later on. |
Many thanks for the responses so far. I will certainly post the results of the study once they have been processed.
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Poster: A snowHead
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You should also be asking about the use of Helmets and the oblivious silent (new style skiing)nature of the skier/snowboarder which may or may not cause more third party accidents than they were designed for ???????
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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OK had a proper look at the survey now. Overly focused IMV on whether people wear helmets due to peer/parent/spouse pressure and not on core beliefs as to level of danger of environment or assesing safety improvement relative to worst case. Would be relatively easy to have a question which asked what % lifetime significant head injury risk you think you'd have without a helmet to what % with? The difference and indeed the perception of risk level v available data would tell you quite a lot about individuals' risk assessment.
Also nothing asking how much research the respondent has read.
Poo - been suckered into talking about helmets.
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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?
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Sort of ? on topic.
I never get involved in the many helmet threads as they tend to have too many thread drifts for me.
But, for those who don’t know, I’ll tell you the last thing you’ll hear, just before you die if you hit your head really hard when skiing. OK you won’t be able to tell anyone but, hey ho.
Not really sure how to describe it but it’s like the resonant tone of a large bell. Imagine if you put your head inside a large bell and someone stuck with a hammer. It’s not the actual bell chime (the noise you hear on a Sunday morning) but rather the tonal humming that comes about a second after the strike but in the case the tone doesn’t reduce in volume, it just keeps going. You can only normally hear this type of tone if you’re really close to a large bell that’s been struck, but imagine being inside the bell and hearing it. Well that’s what it sounds like to hit your head hard enough.
However, this may have been just my experience and it may be different for each person – who knows.
My experience came on a BASI race training course. Was coming down “really” fast down a very steep slope, caught an edge, heard the bell, work up after somersaulting 200m down the slope.
I good mate of mine, who I hope that you never meet as he is the consultant casualty doctor you’ll get taken to on the helicopter from anywhere in the Milky Way area, told me that in these type of accidents you either get paralysed, die or get lucky and have no serious injuries. There are very rarely any other outcomes at that speed – he watched the accident and (very lucky for me) was there to check for spinal cord and bone injuries. I only had a few ripped tendons (arms and legs ain’t meant to bend like they do when a person starts to bounce down a hill).
I was wearing a helmet.
But now please feel free to shout at me and tell me that wearing a helmet will mess up your hair, make you feel uncomfortable, they don’t look good in photos, etc, etc
The ONLY argument for not wearing a helmet that stands up to scrutiny, is Personal Choice. You don’t wear a helmet as you don’t want to. That’s fine by me, you know the risks and you choose to accept them, that’s OK.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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slider_tom, I hope this is purely qualitative research - or padding for a dissertation - because otherwise your sampling method sucks.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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your sampling method sucks.
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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.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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slider_tom, done it, you do go on a bit 
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I still think its really a psychology exercise on how pompous or self righteous a self-selected bunch of people with stuff to say about helmets are. Agree its terrible sampling but anyone asking people on specialist internet fora to respond to questionnaires has probably already failed scientific method 101.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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| Quote: |
scientific method 101
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is that the one where you phrase the same question 101 different ways? That's how it seemed to me anyway.
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rayscoops, he was racing! Not much point racing slowly, I suppose.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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| Colin B wrote: |
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scientific method 101
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is that the one where you phrase the same question 101 different ways? That's how it seemed to me anyway. |
Well it would be pretty difficult to make good graphs etc to compare answers/data if all the questions were vastly different don't you think?
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easiski, the key point is that the answers will be skewed from sampling from a self selected population who are 1) sufficiently geeky to be on a ski forum in mid summer and 2) care enough about helmets to answer a fairly tedious questionnaire about them. Its a problem all questionnaire based methods have in that you never capture enough of the population who can't be bothered or are too busy to answer. I'd expect a supervisor to have a good attack at the data validity for that.
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You know it makes sense.
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good quiz
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Done it, but like so many have said, it does get a bit repetitive. However, as long as the data proves of some use in the final project/dissertation etc, then it's all worth it I suppose.
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Poster: A snowHead
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| pam w wrote: |
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your sampling method sucks.
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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... you missed out
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| 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.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| fatbob wrote: |
| easiski, the key point is that the answers will be skewed from sampling from a self selected population who are 1) sufficiently geeky to be on a ski forum in mid summer and 2) care enough about helmets to answer a fairly tedious questionnaire about them. Its a problem all questionnaire based methods have in that you never capture enough of the population who can't be bothered or are too busy to answer. I'd expect a supervisor to have a good attack at the data validity for that. |
Hi Fatbob. I am not quite sure where you have got the idea that snow heads is the only place that the survey is getting data from?
As a second point ALL data collection methods have an inherent bias - even if by some chance you managed to get every skier in the world who speaks English to answer a survey…  [/b]
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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?
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slider_tom, so is your study actually comparing different levels of sadness in different populations? 
Presumably you are visiting a fridge/the odd ski shop etc to capture more representative data?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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slider_tom, I'm not suggesting shs is the only place and you may have some clever filtering/weighting going on behind the scenes but you are not specifically asking people where they found the questionnaire from. If the data is used with a qualification, among a population of ski obsessed web geeks attitudes to helmets were... Even if you've lots of sources a relatively high contribution from a single source can skew results.
Surely a better sampling method would be to interview every 100th person taking base uplift in a ski resort on a given day etc. (granted more costly)
If you had to ask me to punt on snowheads general results I'd expect a higher level of helmet wearing relativ to the general population, a justification based on a personal belief they may make things safer and an attitude which tells "the man" to stick it if he suggests they should be mandatory.
Although it was long winded I actually think there were a number of quite smart things in your questionnaire such as gauging what people considered to be more risky types of terrain.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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If you had to ask me to punt on snowheads general results I'd expect a higher level of helmet wearing relativ to the general population, a justification based on a personal belief they may make things safer and an attitude which tells "the man" to stick it if he suggests they should be mandatory.
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well that's what comes out of my responses.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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| Callai wrote: |
| Done it, but like so many have said, it does get a bit repetitive. However, as long as the data proves of some use in the final project/dissertation etc, then it's all worth it I suppose. |
Many thanks!
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| rob@rar wrote: |
| A lengthy survey, but at least it's possible to complete it because the questions are reasonable and realistic, unlike some surveys that get posted here. |
Thanks for completing the survey!
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| pam w wrote: |
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If you had to ask me to punt on snowheads general results I'd expect a higher level of helmet wearing relativ to the general population, a justification based on a personal belief they may make things safer and an attitude which tells "the man" to stick it if he suggests they should be mandatory.
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well that's what comes out of my responses. |
Pretty much what I said as well.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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slider_tom, Done. Hope it's useful.
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FAQ
