From: Lawrence DeBivort (debivort@umd5.umd.edu)
Date: Wed 10 Mar 2004 - 11:52:35 GMT
Greetings, everyone,
It may be that there has been more research in this area than I am aware of.
My own research was done a long time ago, and I did not follow the matter
further.
Chris, our team uses on-site PCD (performance centered design) to both
elicit user requirements and design self-deployable, zero-footprint
software. That approach avoids many of the problems that emerge from user
surveys and off-site user interviews.
Best regards,
Lawry
> -----Original Message-----
> From: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk [mailto:fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk]On Behalf
> Of Chris Taylor
> Sent: Wed, March 10, 2004 4:24 AM
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Subject: Re: SUSPECT SPAM (exim-4.30.conf) -
>
>
> Thanks Frankie and Lawry. I must admit I'm surprised to hear that this
> is not a big area of study, although there is that 'survey survey'
> problem which is rather thorny.
>
> I found the idea of just discounting the answers of those who are
> suspected to be 'cheating' interesting -- kind of like the 'bad day to
> predict the weather' principle that comes out of complex short term
> climate models, cos that's all they can manage given the inherent
> difficulties.
>
> Just to put it in context; I'm predominantly a data modeller and user
> reqs gatherer these days, and getting people to (a) be completely honest
> about how they and others work, and (b) stop saying they're in favour of
> good things, and against bad things, is a bugger :)
>
> Thanks again guys -- good stuff.
>
> Cheers, Chris.
>
> Lawrence DeBivort wrote:
>
> > Greetings, all,
> >
> > Years ago (ok, decades) I did a study within our psych department on how
> > accurately people were responding to surveys and test
> instruments. I results
> > were astonishingly low, and one consequence of the research was
> that I moved
> > away from using such instruments and surveys in my own work.
> >
> > I note the trouble that Khalil Shikaki got into recently in
> carrying public
> > opinion surveys among Palestinians. My sense is that people tended to
> > respond accurately, there, but didn't like the publication of
> the results as
> > they could be construed to lift pressure on the Israelis to
> deal fairly with
> > the Palestinians.
> >
> > I don't know of any really good discussions on this subject,
> and there is of
> > course a meta-problem in carrying out a survey to assess the
> accuracy with
> > which people respond to surveys!
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Lawry
> >
> >
> >
> >>>Does anyone know of a decent review article that addresses people's
> >>>behaviour when filling in psychometric tests? (i.e. the way they
> >>>might try to guess what the right sort of answer might be instead of
> >>>answering honestly, and perhaps arms race style counter-tactics by
> >>>various designers such as repeating the question with a different
> >>>formulation).
> >
> >
> >
> >>>Cheers, Chris.
> >
> >
> >
> > Frankie: > I was hoping someone else would help you out with
> this because I
> > am
> >
> >>trying to remember stuff I learned in class over 10 years ago. But
> >>IIRC some of this stuff ought to give you a place to start.
>
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