UKC

Hi climbing friends, 🧗🏻

as part of my studies internship, I am working on a project that involves better understanding recreational climbers’ lifestyles and attitudes. For this, I created a quick survey which takes about 7 minutes to complete. 

Your insights would be valuable! 🌟 Plus you’ll get the chance to win cool climbing-related prizes (Lattice Remote Assessment, online 1-on-1 session with a mental coach for climbers, or Climb Strong membership).

Here’s the Link: 🔗https://forms.gle/6DrFYPXRyypzrni3A

Thanks for taking the time and being part of this project!

I've just one comment: apart from "Beginner", the other categories "Intermediate/Advanced/Expert" are measures of skill, not experience.  I have decades of experience, but I am undoubtedly a punter and is not lack of experience which is holding me back.

I would appreciate it if you could share the results here and with the participants' emails as well. It is always disappointing when you spend some time filling out a questionnaire and then nothing happens; that demotivates one from participating in more studies. 

I wouldn't call this a survey, I'd call this unashamed trawling the internet for a contacts / spam list aimed at the sale of training plans and coaching.

Yup.  As I said on the other, now deleted, post about this, the poster registered today, hasn't filled out their profile, has only posted (twice) about this and hasn't said where he's studying, what the course is and who his tutor is.

It's extremely suspicious and I wouldn't trust this further than I could throw the server the harvested data will be stored on.  I certainly wouldn't click that link.

T.

Nah, looks legit to me. 

If this was a simple data mining operation it wouldn’t be an approx 7 minute questionnaire, it’d be far shorter, plus if you click on the T&C link it links to a climbing Psychology organisation (also very legit, named and pictured experts) who mention they take psychology students just as the poster claims.

Even if you’re right and I’m wrong, it’ll be nice to have some climbing related spam in my inbox instead of the usual hot singles in my area and wealthy Princes seeking accounts to move their money to.

Hi Howard,

thanks for taking the time to participate. You raise a valid point there. The intention was to get a general self-evaluation of peoples’ climbing level but I agree that this is indeed more related to skill rather than experience. Appreciate your comment!

Jana

Hi riazanovskiy,

thanks for participating! I understand your interest in the results and that it can be demotivating to invest time in a survey and not see the results. As of now, we are still collecting responses but I will make sure to share the results with the participants via email once the data collection is complete.

Jana

Appreciate your honest opinion. I can assure you that my intention with this survey is solely to gather insights for an internship project and there will be no spam or promotions sent to participants.

Jana

Hi Tony,

I understand your scepticism about online surveys. Yes, I created my profile with the purpose of sharing this survey because UKC has a big climbing community and I hope to reach as many climbers as possible to get diverse input. I can assure you that my project is genuine and for context, my internship is part of a M.Sc. Sport and Performance Psychology in the Netherlands!

Jana

Hi Iamgregp,

Appreciate your vote of confidence and for participating in the survey. Yes, the survey is legit and in collaboration with a trustworthy organisation genuinely interested in the psychology of climbers. I'll keep you updated on the survey results. Thanks again for your contribution!

Jana

Hi Jana,

Thanks for the response.  The learning points, if you return about this, are: that you are not the first to ask for survey input, it happens many times each year; that you'll get more answers if you show genuine intent, which includes your university, your course and even your tutor; that these bona fides should be upfront and in your post so that people don't have to go looking for them; that filling out a profile helps show that you're a functional human being rather than a bot; and that clearing this with site management should be done ahead of time and saying that you've done this should also be in your post.

But thanks for coming back.

T.

Hello, I'd like to reassure everyone about Jana's legitimacy. As her supervisor for this internship project, I oversee her work closely. Our platform, Climbing Psychology, focuses on supporting climbers globally with their mindset. The survey is part of an exciting project for recreational climbers. We can assure you that your data won't be used for spam. Not only would that be unethical, but it would also be illegal. The only purpose for collecting your email addresses is to enter you into the raffle at the end of the survey and to send you the results once we’ve evaluated the data. 😊 And if you have any concerns about our legitimacy or credibility, please feel free to review the articles we've collaborated on with UKC in the past, or visit our homepage, which showcases partnerships with numerous well-known gyms, federations, events (such as the Women’s Climbing Symposium in GB), and climbing teams worldwide. We appreciate everyone's support for this survey! Thank you! 🙏🏻 Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any further questions!

This explanation is all good.  But I strongly endorse Tony Buckley's comment that it would have been much better had it all been stated up-front, to establish the bona fides of the enquiry, its authority, academic respectability, accountability and transparency.  From past experience in conducting a fair few questionnaire surveys I'd regard that as standard, well-established good practice.

It surprises me that these kinds of online surveys are in any way adequate as input for a further degree.

Agree! We’ll definitely keep that in mind for the future. 😊

I would have thought the institution you are working for should be named as sponsoring the study, else where would I seek to file a complaint if I had one or ask for my data to be withdrawn? You assure us of GDPR, but again unless we know who you are working for (department contact, etc), how can we be sure you aren't going to use any data nefariously. It looks like fishing, so I suggest you work with your academic supervisor and correct it.

Lots of useful, published research is gathered by voluntary surveys and interviews. 

Unlike a census, there is no way to be sure the answers are fully representative, because the target group cannot be legally forced to answer.

How else would this kind of information be gathered other than asking climbers to volunteer it via survey or interview?

Tricky indeed, but you're making the assumption that bad data (i.e., unknown significance) is better than no data. In some cases that may be true (e.g., as a statistical exercise, as long as any conclusion are suitably qualified as 'meaningless') but all too often the significance of the conclusions is asserted or implied to be higher than that of the data, which is wrong and misleading.

Online quizzes probably narrow your field significantly. This survey asks about motivation, spare time, face2face versus online etc.. those bothered to fill out this survey will likely sway the result in a given direction. Those unmotivated who prefer conventional books and face time won't likely ever even encounter it, never mind fill it out. 

You still didn't say which university, the fact people have to work to get details from you and that it requires me to provide my email address put me off. Normally I'm happy to help people for these things however I can

All data has varying levels of certainty. As you rightly point out, it's important to be honest about that certainty, and how much weight can be placed on the conclusions. 

That doesn't mean that the results of voluntary surveys are entirely worthless, or are inherently misleading. Understanding and correcting survey error is an entire domain within statistics, and a lot more complicated than qualifying the data as "meaningless". 

I didn't suggest that all voluntary surveys are meanlingless, just that if you don't consider the significance of the data (aka uncertainty) and how it propagates to the conclusion then then significance (meaning) of the result unknown (rather than zero).

Who was it that said "Numbers without error bars are marketing not science" (or words to that effect)?

I don't think the OP has actually claimed this is part of their degree work at any point, have they? Merely that it's a "studies internship", whatever that might be. And the T&Cs just refer to the company. So it looks to me a lot like it's just a marketing survey for the company.

In the post I replied to they say : "my internship is part of a M.Sc. Sport and Performance Psychology in the Netherlands".

I may be misunderstanding that, but it sounds like it contributes to the degree to me.

Can the mods correct the nonsense title?  Can it be that hard?

Ah sorry, not sure how I missed that post.

“Reational”?
If you can’t be arsed to spell the survey title correctly, I can’t be arsed to look at it.