Dear Blair:
I feel compelled to respectively disagree with you regarding the usefulness
of surveys. The problem of getting truthful survey responses due to social
desireability bias you refer to you in message below is a well known problem
in survey design, going well beyond recycling issues. There are books and
courses on survey design that discuss all variations of survey approaches
for getting truthful answers (not to mention survey completion). Well
designed surveys may be very helpful in diagnosing participation problems or
confirming reasons for why they occur. With respect to recycling education
and outreach, surveys can help you understand, for example, how people
generally get their information or how effective certain messages were. If
a survey fails to provide the information you need, you need to at least ask
1)Did you use the right type of survey (mail, telephone or in-person), 2)Was
the design properly designed? and 3)was it properly implemented? A really
well done survey is neither simple to do nor necessarily an inexpensive
undertaking.
Sincerely,
Roger M. Guttentag
610-584-8836
rgutten@concentric.net
----- Original Message -----
From: Blair Pollock <bpollock@co.orange.nc.us>
To: <greenyes@earthsystems.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 19, 2000 12:50 PM
Subject: Re: greenyes-d Digest V00 #213
Katy ¯ regarding surveys to find out if people recycle, unfortunately, they
lie because they know they should be recycling. A door to door survey we
conducted in a low-particiation area 80%+ reported that they were recycling
but a check of curbside recycling setouts for a month showed <50% were
recycling at the curb. THerefore, I am not certain of the usefulness of
surveys.
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