SONA - MRC CBU Language Wiki
CbuLanguage: SONA

SONA Comments & discussion on questions for first, general enrolment


How long did this take to fill out?


23 minutes overall including reading all the preambles. -R2

15 minutes (reading every word). -R3

~~ 10 minutes, in a hurry; knew what to expect, more or less -R5

~10min. (it's reasonable, but I tend to be quick with such things) -R1

< 10 minutes -R6

~about 5 minutes to complete -R4


Qs on hearing OK?


Thought these were fine -R6

Section 4 (hearing) forces you to answere to question 2 if if you have answered 'yes' to question 1. (although Q2 starts by saying 'IF NO'..)

Section 5, last question (other instrument) is also forced, even though it start by 'If other...' -R5


Qs on handedness OK?


Thought these were fine -R6

I think I am happy with the way the handedness is now handled -R5


Qs on language background OK?


Thought these were fine .........the information provided would certainly be sufficient for any studies I would be running at the CBU. -R6

I thought that the 9 questions asked about language were fairly simple and straightforward -R4

I still don't like the idea of asking about the language in childhood home, can we do without the 'home'? E.g., was English the only language you spoke in your childhood? -R5

- language questions: first it asks about language spoken at home, then if not English, what was it, and then about age when learn English; that is fine; but then it asks about second language, level and age started; for me it's English (second language), so you end up repeating the same information about English.... maybe it should be changed to 'other language apart from English and your first language mentioned above'; also, initially (before 2nd/3rd lang questions) it only asks about age when started learning English, not about proficiency level... - R1

The questions about language are a bit mixed up I think. I say 1st: English was not spoken at home. Then I say my first language was XYZ. Then it asks me for my second language. Which one does it refer to? Is my second language XYZ or English? The situation should be already clear from my previous answers. -R2


Any general comments?


I've looked at the comments made on the wiki. The only thing I might want to add is that some of the questions beginning with 'If' should have an 'n/a' option. Declining to answer a question is different from it not being applicable to you and at the moment the questionnaire does not allow for that distinction. -R3

a general problem with the questionnaire - that you are forced to answer questions which are not appropriate. For example, under 'languages', it asks, if you speak a 3rd language, to enter that language. If you leave it blank, it then forces you to say how fluent you are. Similarly, if you say that you have no musical experience, it forces you to say what instruments, how long etc. -R7

The general problem is that whenever you have answered NO, it still forces you to answer the following question, even though it is not applicable. So one has to say one doesn't want to answer it, rather than the question itself not coming up in the first place. This is not good. It should be programmed in a conditional way. -R2

- Section 10, questions 8 ,10 and 12 are also forced even if the answers to 7,9&11 were 'no', Of course, for the last three items, one could always choose 'I don't want to asnwer', but this is not logical, the instruction implies that you only have to answer if you said 'yes', and this is how it should be implemented. - R5

it's a real nuisance to have to tick "declined to answer" for something where the question is inappropriate. Is there any way to avoid this? Even disabling checking of responses to questions could help make completion easier. -R4 - Asking for both DOB and age is redundant, just DOB is enough. -R5

- first page with personal info: it wants home telephone number, mobile and work, and then primary and secondary email; usually ppl don't have all of these, so natural thing is to leave them blank, however the system doesn't accept that, you need to tick the 'don't want to give that info' box, which isn't the most intuitive thing to do; also later, when question is not relevant, you need to tick that box (at least later you are told to do that), so maybe changing it to 'don't want to give info / NA' would be more appropriate -R1

Asking for both DOB and age is redundant, just DOB is enough. -R5

I went through the quiz, it is manageable, in my opinion. There should be more explicit warning (in bold/red?) comforting the people that their data are protected/anonymous. Otherwise, not many may want to do the mental health part (at least to me this felt the most intrusive on one's privacy) -R5

It's doable but the preambles are too long and the assurance of staying anonymous is not stressed enough in all this. -R2

Too many questions about bereavement -R2

- and last thing: a lot of emotion questions... many too detailed I think -R1

compared to the 13 questions asked about emotional experiences and disorders the language questions are quick and pretty uninvasive -R4

. .


Corrections/changes made


On page 5/10, musical instruments: should probably be "double bass" instead of "double base" -R6 CORRECTED 3/2/10

Regarding the hearing questions, I'd suggested a question, if a person didn't have normal hearing, about whether they understand speech better in quiet or noisy situations -R7 CORRECTED 3/2/10

-- Main.SallyButterfield - 02 Feb 2010 -- Main.JonathanPeelle - 03 Feb 2010 -- Main.SallyButterfield - 04 Feb 2010

CbuLanguage: SONA (last edited 2013-08-02 17:05:18 by RussellThompson)