[Tango-L] Research project: Correlation between cultural identity and tango

[Astrid]

Shahrukh Merchant wrote:
> (d) who was 
> really behind the survey (no indication in the original email nor on the 
> website) (e) why the need for an email address (albeit optional) "to 
> receive the survey results" when the obvious thing to do would be to 
> post the results back to Tango-L?
>
> It may very well be legitimate, but I would suggest that the 
> survey-taker may wish to answer or address some of these points to get a 
> better and more useful response 
I was sent this survey a while ago by a friend who works in an 
Australian university and who dances tango. I filled it in because I 
thought it was hers. I also, in the comment sections, added a few 
questions regarding the research methods and as to who wrote this 
questionnarie and what is it's purpose and received no answer at all. In 
fact, a few weeks later she sent me another mail, asking me again to 
fill in the same questionnaire. When I replied that I had already done 
so she wrote:"Thank youuuuuu!" So maybe it is from her, as I thought?
However- I have taken a semester of empirical research and it 's methods 
used for psychological studies and have to say that this survey is using 
one of the classical methods (giving a list of words and asking people 
to rate them on a scale of 1-10 or whatever) and the method is ill 
chosen in this case. In my opinion it is unlikely to produce any useful, 
significant results. The whole questionnarie is boring, as you already 
said, and likely to frustrate and demotivate the person who is filling 
it in. It does not facilitate expressing the dancer's thoughts or 
feelings, does not hit on the essence of tango but rather consists of a 
number of haphazardly chosen ill fitting questions (copied from other, 
similar questonnaires designed to research a compeltely different 
topic?) which say more about the researcher's lack of imagination, 
research experience and understanding of the tango  than anything else. 
The only thing that speaks in favour of using this questionnaire is the 
fact that it is easy to evaluate and that the answers to these shallow 
and misleading questions are quickly counted. Which would fit my 
impression that the researcher is a lazy one who is not willing to spend 
much time on designing or thinking about neither the questionnare nor 
the answers.

Astrid