Biker research

Gargoyle555

Hi All. I am conducting research into the behavioural tendencies of bikers as part of my final year research project in psychology. I am a biker myself and am looking for participants who would be willing to fill in three short questionnaires which should take about ten minutes. If you are interested, please pm me your email address and I will send you the questionnaires. Thanks in advance.

RosieJoe

Have you gotten any response out of this yet?

Please Kill Me

I sent a PM a couple of days ago. I haven't heard anything back yet.

BlackWizard

I wouldn't bother with him. If he really was arsed he would look into hosting the survey online and just providing us with a link to it like most researchers do. I can see a Pass degree on the horizon for someone here :rolleyes:

Cuddlesworth

BlackWizard wrote: »

I wouldn't bother with him. If he really was arsed he would look into hosting the survey online and just providing us with a link to it like most researchers do. I can see a Pass degree on the horizon for someone here :rolleyes:

Nothing says I have a degree, like a pass mark on everything.

RosieJoe

I'll help out if still required. It'll be my good deed for the month week

Gargoyle555

BlackWizard wrote: »

I wouldn't bother with him. If he really was arsed he would look into hosting the survey online and just providing us with a link to it like most researchers do. I can see a Pass degree on the horizon for someone here :rolleyes:

If you don't want to contribute to this don't. I'm curious as to why you feel the need to involve yourself in something that doesn't concern you though. As for hosting the survey online, it is three seperate questionnaires with a couple of additional questions at the end. If you are talking about survey monkey or one of those, you should know that they are not suitable for this kind of research.
To those of you who have taken the time to pm me, thanks. I have emailed everyone who contacted me.
Thanks again.

Gargoyle555

RosieJoe wrote: »

I'll help out if still required. It'll be my good deed for the month week

Cheers man, can you pm me your email address and I will send it on to you.

Gargoyle555

Please Kill Me wrote: »

I sent a PM a couple of days ago. I haven't heard anything back yet.

Hey man. I sent the questionnaires the other day and again today. Will you let me know if you get it? Cheers

RosieJoe

PM'd you there

Gargoyle555

RosieJoe wrote: »

PM'd you there

Thanks for that RosieJoe.

BlackWizard

I'm quite passionate about this because I done a lot of statistics in college/work and a huge part of the research part was getting people to complete surveys. The very first 101 class is to make it very easy for people to do surveys. The big example every lecturer or practitioner gives you is never email/post to a person and ask them to get back to you about filling out a survey.

I worked with a guy who sent around an email asking people to email him back if they would like to complete a company survey. He was taken off the team and project..pretty much demoted. It's shockingly bad.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/

Stick the survey up there and send us the link. You'll get loads of people doing it. I can't be arsed emailing you and saying I'd be interested (just like 90% of people)

@Cuddlesworth I don't follow you on this one man. I was basically saying when it comes to writing the thesis which is based off statistics that he will not be able to get anything more than a pass mark because of his awful sampling technique. The amount quite often doesn't matter as much when being marked, it's more to do with how you go about reaching out to your sample.

Gargoyle555

BlackWizard wrote: »

I'm quite passionate about this because I done a lot of statistics in college/work and a huge part of the research part was getting people to complete surveys. The very first 101 class is to make it very easy for people to do surveys. The big example every lecturer or practitioner gives you is never email/post to a person and ask them to get back to you about filling out a survey.

I worked with a guy who sent around an email asking people to email him back if they would like to complete a company survey. He was taken off the team and project..pretty much demoted. It's shockingly bad.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/

Stick the survey up there and send us the link. You'll get loads of people doing it. I can't be arsed emailing you and saying I'd be interested (just like 90% of people)

@Cuddlesworth I don't follow you on this one man. I was basically saying when it comes to writing the thesis which is based off statistics that he will not be able to get anything more than a pass mark because of his awful sampling technique. The amount quite often doesn't matter as much when being marked, it's more to do with how you go about reaching out to your sample.

Well you make one or two good points, however you are coming from a point of ignorance in so far as you do not know what my study is.
First of all, surveymonkey is an excellent tool if you have a short questionnaire and/ or you are dealing with a population that is familiar with it. The vast majority of people will not go to an unknown website to participate in a battery of questionnaires consisting of over 100 questions. Secondly, you should know that when obtaining a sample, you need to know your population. Group identity for bikers is very strong. As such, out of 70 or so questionnaires that I have sent out using this method, I have received 59 back. My original target was 50. If you are experienced with conducting surveys you will know that this return rate is extremely high. Thirdly and in my opinion, most importantly, the method used to obtain a sample can only be judged by the quality of that sample. Using this method, I have obtained a sample of bikers of all age groups, from all parts of the country, both male and female. This is, in any estimation, an excellent sample. The only conceivable way to get a better sample of the population would be to use random sampling. As I am sure you know, this is impossible given the size of the population we are talking about.
Having said all that, I thank you for taking the time to critique my methods. Although I disagree with you wholeheartedly, it is refreshing to have a debate about statistics with someone who obviously knows what they are talking about .

Blondie919

PM sent.

Velvety

BlackWizard wrote: »

I was basically saying when it comes to writing the thesis which is based off statistics that he will not be able to get anything more than a pass mark because of his awful sampling technique. The amount quite often doesn't matter as much when being marked, it's more to do with how you go about reaching out to your sample.

What are you on about?

I'm quite passionate about this

You're not.

because I done a lot of statistics in college/work

You haven't.

BlackWizard

Gargoyle555 wrote: »

Well...talking about .

I get ya. If you want to specificially only target a certain type of person then of course you don't want any average joe coming along and filling out your form.

But I would of imagined that anyone who is on an internet form must have filled out an online questionaire before. There was a few of these last year on this forum and the Motors forum. They get loads of replies.

59 is an amazing result from this forum. I'm pretty much astonished you got that many emails from this one thread. There must be a massive amount of people lurking around here :eek:

@Velvety There might be a childrens forum elsewhere. Would you mind going play there please.

P.C.

BlackWizard wrote: »

@Velvety There might be a childrens forum elsewhere. Would you mind going play there please.

ATTACK THE POST, NOT THE POSTER.

Wossack

would highly doubt the net has just been cast in this forum

KingIsabella

done.....man i'm unstable....

Velvety

BlackWizard wrote: »

@Velvety There might be a childrens forum elsewhere. Would you mind going play there please.

The guy is in his final year of a psychology degree and you have authoritatively said that he is going to get a pass mark because he hasn't put his materials on surveymonkey.

I'm telling you you haven't a clue what you're talking about. When I don't have a clue what I'm talking about I keep quiet. The closing stages of a degree can be stressful enough without someone giving input where they shouldn't be.

BlackWizard

Velvety wrote: »

The guy is in his final year of a psychology degree and you have authoritatively said that he is going to get a pass mark because he hasn't put his materials on surveymonkey.

I'm telling you you haven't a clue what you're talking about. When I don't have a clue what I'm talking about I keep quiet. The closing stages of a degree can be stressful enough without someone giving input where they shouldn't be.

Cool man. Much easier to understand this post than the last! Definitely true and I should not have barked at him like that. It just pisses me off to no end when I have to work with people that do this sort of stuff after college.

I know from two colleages who both only got pass marks for their thesis (still managed a 2.1 overall) because their sampling process was pretty awful. Speaking to a lecturer in a previous job he also found the standard of sampling can seriously impare the scoring of a project or thesis.

Okay so from personal experience, I never messed up any sampling. So I just know from other people and I also know from being dependant on the results of surveys for making decisions.

Gargoyle555

1. Thanks for the support Velvety, you're right about the stress bit:eek:
2. FAO Black Wizard - I put this request on three different biker forums, the response on all three has been excellent.
3. Most importantly. I have acquired a larger sample than I imagined I would. As such, I want to thank all of you who have contributed. As Velvety said, this stage of a degree course is extremely stressful and you guys and girls that took the time to help me out have significantly reduced my stress levels.
My report is due at the end of March so for anyone who is interested in the prosocial and antisocial tendencies and personality traits of a sample of bikers when compared to a sample taken from the general population, I will post a synopsis of my research here at the start of April.
Thanks again.

Steffano2002

Jesus Christ, a lot of haters here!

Guys, when a biker asks for help, any sort of help, just help out or shut up! What gives you the right to criticise his way of surveying bikers?

Advising him to do something different is one thing but otherwise, keep your negative and judgemental comments to yourself!

BlackWizard

Ah it's the internet though! Best place to rant and moan about stuff

Please Kill Me

Questionnaire completed and emailed back man.

galwaytt

Please Kill Me wrote: »

Questionnaire completed and emailed back man.

I'm no research guru, but, I'd wager research amongst the biker community is particularly easy, as your response rate bears out. This is because, fundamentally, we are fantastic people who love to help.

Analyze That ! ( forgive the pun..... )