Kylie's said:
Thank you to everyone who has completed the survey. In response to the comments made so far:
1) As a general comment, scientific research is conducted to try to help the community. Constructive comments are very useful in helping researchers of all levels do better work, so if you have a problem with some aspect of a piece of research then offer a suggestion on how you think this problem could be overcome. Negative comments and suggestions that researchers are conducting their work with underlying intentions are not useful and are often difficult to respond to as some people have already made up their minds about an issue and are not open to discussions about it.
Hmmmm... given that this forum has seen it's fair share of research proposals, it's members have some considerable experience in completing these questionnaires. As has been raised by previous studies advertised on here, questionnaire-based research into drug use is littered with bias - almost to the point of being comical. If you're going to make a survey public, you've got to expect some public criticism.
2) The questions are not set up to lead to a predetermined outcome. As pointed out by one person, every survey can be viewed as sounding biased. The survey includes some well tested, well known mood inventories (tests) and while some people may not like the tone of the questions, thesequestions are useful in helping researchers to collect meaningful data. The aim of scientific research, such as this, is to research a topic as objectively as possible and that is what we have set out to do.
What are your research questions? PM me if you feel disclosure would 'bias' your results. :D
3) When completing any survey, always give the answer that feels best to you. It is then the researchers issue to determine if the information collected in their survey is meaningful and useful data. It is not my place to say whether people do/do not, have/have not or should/should not feel depressed so I am not going to respond to those comments.
That's wrong on so many levels. If people are having difficulty understanding a survey question and are able to give a variety of different answers to the same question, then, in effect, and across your entire sample, you'll have people answering entirely different questions. In essence, due to poor question definition, you're applying a different survey to each person who takes it due to the degree of interpretation involved. That can't be written off as
"just give the answer that feels best to you"... that's obvious. But there shouldn't be any "feel" involved. The question should be clear and leave no question in the mind of the participant as to what information they are being asked for. Subjective interpretation of survey questions is an ever-present error, but it is one that can be effectively minimised with credible scoping and piloting. Frankly, if you're already anticipating the removal of data due to it being unusable, then that doesn't fill me with confidence.
4) Some questions in the survey are difficult to answer and we expect that people will give crude estimates (e.g. drug use questions). We realise that responses to these questions are not going to be "perfect" answers and that is fine. Answers to these questions will give us an indication of how much someone has used a particular substance or range of substances in comparison to the rest of the people who have participated in our research, so everyone's answers are relative to one another.
Wrong.
It's all NOT relative baby!"
If everybody is using a different definition of scale then, as has already been pointed out, it would be possible for someone to give an estimate almost twice their 'actual' usage, and for another person to give an estimate of less than half. Relativity is not the same as chaos.
5) Geographical location and seasonality are areas of importance that were not included in this initial survey. Based on the outcome of this pilot research this is certainly something we would like to investigate in future studies.
Ahhhhh... so it
is a pilot. If anything, I'd say the critical appraisal you've got in this thread will give you more to work with than the actual data itself.
6) The results may be used for publishing a paper in an international journal. Any published papers are open for scrutiny by other researchers and keeping in mind the difficulties and limitations of conducting this type of research highly relevant concerns and feedback are published. If there are major concerns about this research rest assured that at an international level where this research may be publicized there is the opportunity for other researchers to make similar public comment and to debate these issues.
Ha ha! Aiming a little high for an honour degree aren't we?
7) Finally, this research is being conducted as part of my honours degree which means there has been very little time to put the whole project together (i.e. less than 8 months to research the area, put a questionnaire together that is meaningful, collect data, interpret that data and write up a report; comparatively people doing a PhD have 3 years to do this) and as such there will inevitably be some oversights in my research. That said, I have researched this area previously and have published that work internationally.
You've published internationally BEFORE your honours degree??? That's impressive. Any chance of PM'ing me a link for it/them? I've got a corporate Blackwell Synergy account that could use a bashing.
Regardless of my experience, I have researched this area extensively, tried to use the best methods available and based my questionnaire on one made available to me by other researchers who have been researching this area for decades and who have an extensive list of publications in this area. If you are still unhappy with my research then there is little I can do except for thanking you for taking the time to look at the survey and for passing on your comments. I am truly grateful for how generous people have been with their time which ultimately helps to further our research and knowledge into important issues.
Thanks,
Kylie.
As above, I wouldn't put a great deal of faith into previous survey-research into drug use.
Best of luck.
