Next, the survey design has to have good wording and formatting, in order for it to be a successful survey. I think considering some of the existing literature would be best in deciphering what the problems with past surveys has been, and how to overcome those problems in this survey design. First, I believe it is important to have questions that are not worded vaguely, or that provide for different emotions to be evoked based on a certain connotation of a word. For instance, Tom Smith (1987) proved that different connotations of different word meanings can and will lead to different responses, and that those responses are not true reflections of the question that was meant to be asked (75). I think a major problem that surveys incur are this
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three main criteria: 1) Content Standards; 2) Cognitive Standards, and 3) Usability Standards.
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I am not sure if this survey is attempting to gauge drug related issues with healthcare; or, with the criminal justice system; or, their attitude toward any combination of those; or, their general feelings about problems in Maine; or, problems viewed in America by Maine citizens. It seems arbitrary to have so many measures, or categories, measuring a wide array of attitudes. For instance, what is the relevance with Q1? The first question is asked about the seriousness of drug overdose in Maine, but uses numbers for the entire US population. The problem here is that Maine might not even have any drug deaths, but it is being projected that it might. Additionally, the framing of the questions seems to mislead the respondent in believing that there is an actual problem in Maine. For instance, Q1 says 125 Americans die as a result of a drug overdose, most of them involving prescription painkillers or heroin; however, it has no indication of how many people die of drug overdose in Maine to cause people to think that it might be a problem. It generalizes the aggregate death per day across the nation; so, hypothetically, if one were to divide 125 by 50, then the average for Maine (and all of other states) would be 2.5 deaths per day, which may not even be true. Would people’s perceptions change about the gravity of the problem if it were framed in relative terms? I venture that it would. This question is
three main criteria: 1) Content Standards; 2) Cognitive Standards, and 3) Usability Standards.
Content …show more content…
I am not sure if this survey is attempting to gauge drug related issues with healthcare; or, with the criminal justice system; or, their attitude toward any combination of those; or, their general feelings about problems in Maine; or, problems viewed in America by Maine citizens. It seems arbitrary to have so many measures, or categories, measuring a wide array of attitudes. For instance, what is the relevance with Q1? The first question is asked about the seriousness of drug overdose in Maine, but uses numbers for the entire US population. The problem here is that Maine might not even have any drug deaths, but it is being projected that it might. Additionally, the framing of the questions seems to mislead the respondent in believing that there is an actual problem in Maine. For instance, Q1 says 125 Americans die as a result of a drug overdose, most of them involving prescription painkillers or heroin; however, it has no indication of how many people die of drug overdose in Maine to cause people to think that it might be a problem. It generalizes the aggregate death per day across the nation; so, hypothetically, if one were to divide 125 by 50, then the average for Maine (and all of other states) would be 2.5 deaths per day, which may not even be true. Would people’s perceptions change about the gravity of the problem if it were framed in relative terms? I venture that it would. This question is