[FRC Blog] Two Championship Survey Results and Path Forward

[Squillo]

Originally Posted by fargus111111111

of those who gave a team number, 52% of teams were represented, that is over half of the teams in FRC.

Yes, but I responded, and I know my opinions are not necessarily representative of others on my team.

[scottandme]

Originally Posted by efoote868

Because individuals without a strong opinion do not invest their time in voluntary surveys.

I fill out every FRC (and MAR) survey that I get. Lots of those are pretty mundane, but I do them anyway since they take all of 5 minutes, and (presumably) give useful feedback to the respective groups looking at the data.

If that was actually the case - there should be a lot more 1's and 10's in the results.

[efoote868]

Originally Posted by scottandme

I fill out every FRC (and MAR) survey that I get. Lots of those are pretty mundane, but I do them anyway since they take all of 5 minutes, and (presumably) give useful feedback to the respective groups looking at the data.

If that was actually the case - there should be a lot more 1's and 10's in the results.

38% of the response was 1's and 10's.... that's very bi-polar.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by efoote868

38% of the response was 1's and 10's.... that's very bi-polar.

And that seems odd to you? Were you not here for the original thread and saw how bi-polar the CD community was?

[efoote868]

Originally Posted by dodar

And that seems odd to you? Were you not here for the original thread and saw how bi-polar the CD community was?

A public forum suffers from the same response bias that an online voluntary survey suffers.

[Nate Laverdure]

Originally Posted by efoote868

A public forum suffers from the same response bias that an online voluntary survey suffers.

Why cater to an opinion that doesn't care to reveal itself in a measurable way?

[Siri]

Originally Posted by DanielleSisk

This is simple to do by reducing to number of bins instead of increasing them. Put all responses below the Neutral choice, the 55%, in one bin and call it say bin 4 (to keep our median at 5), then put the 12% which are Neutral into bin 5, and those above neutral, the 33%, into bin 6. Finding the average this way, (55*4+12*5+33*6)/100 = 4.78. Interesting... this shows that giving more options for a positive response gave their average, 4.45 (which should have been 4.47) a skew in the negative response direction. Now the same calculation cannot done for a '1 vote per team' because that data is unavailable.

I'm not sure I understand: your representative bin values are entirely arbitrary, as is the average they produce. I could repeat this same calculation calling "negative" 3 and "positive" 7: I get 4.56. 2 and 8 yields 4.34; 1 and 9 is 4.12; 0 and 10 is 3.9. The problem is that the logical value to assign to each bin is the average of the values in it--1 through 4 as 2.5 and 6 to 10 as 8--but these averages are not centered about the neutral. Shrinking the bin count does not remove this problem.

[efoote868]

Originally Posted by Nate Laverdure

Why cater to an opinion that doesn't care to reveal itself in a measurable way?

Whose opinion matters more, the 10% that took the survey or the 90% that didn't take the survey?

If the survey accurately reflected the opinion of everyone in FIRST, one might expect that 26% of the FIRST population would quit in the near term. And one might be shocked to find that only 4% quit instead, and that the 90% of the community that didn't respond to the survey fell between "mildly dislike to mildly like, mostly don't care."

[dodar]

Originally Posted by efoote868

Whose opinion matters more, the 10% that took the survey or the 90% that didn't take the survey?

If the survey accurately reflected the opinion of everyone in FIRST, one might expect that 26% of the FIRST population would quit in the near term. And one might be shocked to find that only 4% quit instead, and that the 90% of the community that didn't respond to the survey fell between "mildly dislike to mildly like, mostly don't care."

So should we never accept a new president because everyone didnt vote? Just be cause some dont vote, doesnt mean we should neglect those who did.

[AdamHeard]

The world is run by those that show up...

[efoote868]

Originally Posted by dodar

So should we never accept a new president because everyone didnt vote? Just be cause some dont vote, doesnt mean we should neglect those who did.

That's a false equivalency. Responding to the survey had no guarantee of future action.

What I'm arguing is that the results of the survey mean much less than what some in this discussion are giving weight to it, and that putting the numbers in a positive or negative light doesn't matter when the numbers don't mean much.

[dodar]

Originally Posted by efoote868

That's a false equivalency. Responding to the survey had no guarantee of future action.

What I'm arguing is that the results of the survey mean much less than what some in this discussion are giving weight to it, and that putting the numbers in a positive or negative light doesn't matter when the numbers don't mean much.

You are giving an outcome yourself for something you dont know. If FIRST had gotten 100% 1's, I bet you'd see action and the same could be said for 100% 10's.

[efoote868]

Originally Posted by dodar

You are giving an outcome yourself for something you dont know. If FIRST had gotten 100% 1's, I bet you'd see action and the same could be said for 100% 10's.

How is that a guarantee?

[Siri]

Originally Posted by efoote868

Whose opinion matters more, the 10% that took the survey or the 90% that didn't take the survey?

If the survey accurately reflected the opinion of everyone in FIRST, one might expect that 26% of the FIRST population would quit in the near term. And one might be shocked to find that only 4% quit instead, and that the 90% of the community that didn't respond to the survey fell between "mildly dislike to mildly like, mostly don't care."

I agree on the idea that not voting doesn't mean you matter less to the community, but please don't set up the expectation that everyone who clicked "strongly opposed" to the championsplit wants to quit FIRST. That's a very weird metric by which to assess the meaning of these data.

[efoote868]

Originally Posted by Siri

I agree on the idea that not voting doesn't mean you matter less to the community, but please don't set up the expectation that everyone who clicked "strongly opposed" to the championsplit wants to quit FIRST. That's a very weird metric by which to assess the meaning of these data.

I used "quit" as an example of the strongest negative response an individual could have with regard to the situation, as a hypothetical to illustrate response bias.

There are means to get a statistically accurate picture of the opinion of a community, but voluntary online survey is not one of them.