Animal Welfare Study - Help Needed!

Animal Welfare Study - Help Needed!
16-05-2012

Hello all!

I am a BSc Degree student and am carrying out some research for my degree into visitor perceptions of enclosure design and would really appreciate people filling in my two surveys on different enclosures.

Even if you only fill in one I would be very grateful.

Unfortunately I cannot tell you too much about the study as it may influence your answers! However, there is an option to leave your email address if you wish to hear more about the study and results.

Many thanks!


Visitor Perceptions of Zoo Enclosures 1

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/B7JXHNY


Visitor Perceptions of Zoo Enclosures 2

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/N6RZD3K

16-05-2012

Hi,
I would fill it in, but the link doesn´t work (maybe there´s something wrong on my side, but I can´t open it) If you fix it, I´ll be happy to do it

Anyway, just so you know, there often people coming here and asking us to fill various zoo related surveys. We do that, they promise to let us know about the results, but they never do! Please, when you´re done with your study, let us know and share some interesting highlights with us in return...

P.S. Another warning - people on ZooChat are not average zoo visitors, we might shake up your results a bit

16-05-2012

Hi,

Oh no! It seems to be working this end... Heres the links again, does this work?

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/N6RZD3K

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/B7JXHNY

Don't worry ill make sure I let you guys know the results, can't wait for some mixed answers Thanks very much for filling it in!

I didn't know about here, I had took a quick look at pictures before but didn't notice the forums, think I have found a new site to be on all the time! It looks great

16-05-2012

[QUOTE=HollyE;555875]Hello all!


Unfortunately I cannot tell you too much about the study as it may influence your answers!



This would set warning bells ringing with some or us!

I started to look at the sort of questions that you are asking in order to get some idea of which way this is slanted. However, without answering one, I can't go on to the next one. Therefore I won't be participating.

In any event, as Stefka has pointed out, here you are not going to end up with a true impression of visitor perceptions of enclosure designs. Very few people on this site are your average "visitor". You would get a more accurate response by doing the hard yards - go to your local zoo and get responses from the punters.

16-05-2012

[quote=Steve Robinson;555945] Absolutely! (On all counts)

16-05-2012

I got part way through and gave up as because of how the survey was done i couldn't answer the questions,in a way that would have given a proper answer!Because as people have already said the people on this site,are not your average zoo visitor,as so far this year alone I have already been through atleast 8 different walk through primate exhibits alone!!

16-05-2012

HollyE,
I filled in your survey, but only because you wrote this:

Welcome to ZooChat!

But I have to be honest with you.. It´s not an enjoyable survey. As zoogiraffe said, how can we pick just one enclosure and base our answers on that? I had to pick two that came first to my mind, but the question is - what are you trying to achieve by this? If you would like to know, whether people prefer walk-through over naturalistic primate enclosures, you don´t need to do a survey, we´ll tell you

Average ("once or twice a year, on sunny a Sunday") visitors will prefer walk-through and will try to touch/poke/chase/feed the animals if they get the chance. Zoo geeks will prefer naturalistic enclosures. Animal-rights activists don´t care, everything is bad equally.

The way the questions are asked is really confusing and I believe that many people won´t have the patience to finish it. I also skipped some of the "give reason for your answer" boxes, because there was just nothing to explain.. sorry..

I hope this won´t deter you from visiting ZooChat in the future.. It´s a great place here..

16-05-2012

Holly, did you work closely with your supervisor to develop the survey?

A survey is an extremely difficult data capture method that takes months of preparation, lots of discussion with experts, and gets better with practice. You need to go through many iterations, and test the survey on your classmates/family etc before releasing it to the public. I could go on and on.

Holly, I have found that most students are more preoccupied with just getting results, rather than constructing a good survey to get meaningful results that could then be analysed to show useful trends. You really have to be fairly certain about what your aim is, and the kind of analysis that you want to do BEFORE constructing your survey. I hope you have a plan to do some statistical analysis on your results to express how much confidence you have in the results.

I could go on and on, but I'll leave you with this advice: keep consulting your supervisor, and maybe redo the survey questions if you have time.