UKC

Hi guys,

I'm doing a research project at college on the risks in climbing.

I have created a survey to collect responses on this and would appreciate it if people could fill it out.

Any further comments or feedback outwith the survey would also be appreciated!

Cheers,
Ryan

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/K8GJKZR

In reply to ryan1505:
The ground, mostly.

In reply to Lemony:

But only when combined with gravity.

In reply to ryan1505:
Looking at the questions I guess you're only looking at rock climbing, why not say that ? would give you a cleaner data set & wouldn't waste the time of people giving you information you don't want. But if you do want information on eg Scottish winter or Alpine climbing why not ask ?

In reply to ryan1505:
These extraordinary, difficult-to-answer questionnaires of limited utility do my head in. It's as if in each question the word 'take' was replaced by 'eat' and 'risk' by 'blancmange'.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

Does your confidence on the day massively affect the amount of blancmange you are willing to eat?

In reply to john arran:



That's easy. Yes. If I'm feeling confident, I'll risk being sick.

In reply to ryan1505:

Done, good luck with your project.

In reply to ryan1505:

"Does confidence in climbing gear have an influence on the amount of risk you take?"

Is a poor question because if the gear is good you will accept more risk of falling because the risk of injury is low if you do fall. The question needs to be clear whether it is about the risk of injury or the risk of falling.

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:

I think its an ambiguous question in so much that I can make a pretty good intellectual assesment of how good gear is but at the same time not have confidence in it.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

It's as if in each question the word 'take' was replaced by 'eat' and 'risk' by 'blancmange'.


I think your on wobbly ground there...

In reply to Dorchester:

That's fighting talk. Gordon isn't a man to trifle with.

In reply to GrahamD:


bet he's worried now and his legs have turned to jelly.

In reply to summo:


There's hundreds and thousands of reasons why that isn't likely

In reply to GrahamD:

and there's no point in him trying to sweet-talk his way out

In reply to summo:


Yup. Blancmange is a better analogy even than I first realised

Hi. I read your survey, but couldn't complete it, because I found some questions over-simplified and rather unhelpfully phrased. Questions dealing with the relationship between confidence and risk are complex, and depend on various factors. For example, is the climber experienced enough for his/her confidence (or at least a large proportion of it) to be realistic, i.e. to be founded on an objective assessment of risk? In other words, it doesn't altogether make sense to talk about an experienced climbers' feelings of confidence influencing the risks they're prepared to take, as if those things are somehow completely separate, when the reality is that those feelings are, to a large extent, based on rational risk assessments.

By the way, what influenced your choice of categories for climbing experience? You have 3 year sections, finishing with 10+ years, yet your age categories are evenly spread, finishing at age 75 and over. I can't imagine a good reason for this: it's as if you're proposing that there's no difference between a climber of 10 years' experience and one of 40 years' experience.

In reply to tom_in_edinburgh:



+1

In reply to bpmclimb:


A very good point. I think the reason these questionnaires so often do this is simply that the young climbers who set them already consider themselves to be fully developed experts. I think I learned more about climbing well at my standard (no longer pushing the grade so much, though improving) in my second decade of climbing. In my third decade, I was definitely still improving, though I was not so bold. (Never was particularly bold, though a bit crazy at times )

In reply to ryan1505:

The snag with this kind of questionnaire is that it tries to boil down climbing experiences to things that can be put in neat boxes. But it's all much more fluid and variable than the questionnaire implies. It all varies so much, day by day, year by year, crag by crag, situation by situation. Also, although risk assessment is a very important part of climbing, it's not the only thing that it's about - there are so many things going on, so many motivations. And no one climber is the same from day to day. There are days when we are very timid, days when we are sensibly cautious, and occasional days when we are feeling much bolder than usual.

'Are there any risks in climbing you are completely unwilling to take?' - This question almost seems to misunderstand the essence of climbing. All trad climbing is risky, some much more than others. Some types - archetypically alpine climbing - are a lot more dangerous per se because of greater objective dangers. Just by setting off on many alpine climbs you are exposing yourself to greater danger than anything experienced on well-established UK rock crags. It's usually a calculated risk that depends most of all on assessment of weather and conditions. But the weather (and conditions) can change v rapidly in the Alps so that you're suddenly faced with much greater risks than you first bargained for, even if you've wisely decided to retreat. What simply cannot be emphasized enough is that when things go wrong in 'the climbing game' you simply have to be bold enough to take huge risks to extricate yourself safely. There are situations when you have to say goodbye to timidity and over-caution in order to survive. But that wasn't what you chose to do when you set out.

'Does confidence in climbing gear have an influence on the amount of risk you take?'

Well, the obvious only possible answer is: yes. But then it asks: 'Why?' !!

Er ... If I fear that I might injure myself seriously I'm not prepared to take so much risk ... because I fear I might injure myself seriously.

'Does your confidence on the day massively affect the amount of risk you are willing to take?' = 'If, on a particular day, you feel less prepared to take risks, does it mean you're less prepared to take risks?'

Quite weird questions really.

In reply to ryan1505:

Sorry Ryan I didn't complete this. Found it pretty difficult to work out what was meant.

For instance: ' Does confidence in climbing gear have an influence on the amount of risk you take?'

Not really sure what you're getting at here. Like most climbers I wouldn't use shit gear so I always have confidence in it. Certain types of routes are more risky than others but that has nothing to do with the quality of one's equipment. Are you talking about bad runners? Then the risk will be dependent on what other gear you have in as well.

The whole idea of risk in climbing seems pretty complicated. For instance run out routes or where there's a chance of a ground fall the risk would seem high. But of course if the route is well within your ability the risk is going to be much lower. There are different risks too: risk of falling, risk of injury, risk of a ground fall, risk of death etc.

In reply to ryan1505:
I did your survey but couldn't answer one question. You need to take up climbing in order to produce a sensible survey.

In reply to ryan1505:

I didn't have a problem with his survey. I filled it in and that was that.

In reply to olddirtydoggy:


Well I suppose one can approach any survey that way: not give it much thought, just slap in the answers that most immediately seem right(ish). That's the approach I tend to reserve for (usually compulsory, invariably boring) official forms. With a survey of this type the issues touched on tend to appear more complex (and more interesting) if you slow down a bit and give them some thought, which I prefer to do, otherwise the process is mechanical and boring - and therefore pointless, since it's not compulsory.