Questions about Surveys

[randy everette]

On the survey about the dog’s coat color(s), why isn’t tan a choice?

My dog is a tricolor beagle. So I picked black and white. But wasn’t sure what to do about tan. It’s not listed-not even as one of ones listed thereafter, so I picked yellow as it’s closer than the next closest choice, chocolate brown.

[kathryn smith]

Randy — ‘Tri-color’ is the color of your dog — black, tan, white in specific places — almost like a ‘tuxedo’ cat ( black/white ) has the two colors in specified locations — as do ‘Black and tan’ German Shepherds. You might try to revise the answer to ‘Tri-Color’ . Hope this helps. A ‘Red’ Doberman Pinscher is actually Red and TAN, but the tan is a ‘given’ so to speak — as is the ‘Blue’.

[randy everette]

Tri color wasn’t a choice, that’s the whole problem.

[kathryn smith]

Well, Phooey! didn’t realize that — hope somebody ‘in control’ sees your question — If you put in any ‘comments’ you could add it there I would think –

[dawn miller]

hmm, maybe because it is over the holidays that they’ve missed this question.

[jesse mcclure]

Randy,

Sorry for the slow responses during the Holidays. I did see this thread, but it seemed like you had done the right thing so all seemed well. You are right that the question does seem to be missing a valuable option for light brown or tan. Selecting black and white, and optionally the chocolate brown color with a comment that there is tan and/or tricolor ensures all the information is there.

We can revise questions, but that would make the data inconsistent as many people will have answered the old version of the question, and new members will get the revised version. That makes analysis virtually impossible. Instead what we are doing is keeping track of questions that do not work well (there are quite a few!) and we will include a revised version of these questions – as needed – in future surveys. Another good example is “Dog sits frog style.” A lot of people have been very confused by that question having no idea what it was referring to – so the answers to that question will not be particularly meaningful. We do have an upcoming survey on “Resting Styles” that includes frog-style and many other lounging positions with good example photos and descriptions.

We really take a bit of the pasta chef approach to the surveys: we throw it all against the wall and see what sticks. We certainly don’t want to waste anyone’s time with questions that are obviously no good, but often we don’t know which questions will be useful until we get lots of responses and comments.

[randy everette]

Jesse:
Thanks for responding. It makes a little more sense now. I had to think about what frog style meant too.

As for changing the survey, adding Tricolor as a separate option (it I after all a big one for hounds) is more involved and I think worthwhile on future versions of the surveys. But for now adding to as a note to the yellow or chocolate choices would not change the choice sort.

Thanks again. I really like your project, that’s why I signed my beagle and self up.

Randy

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