Pilots Needed For Survey!!!

[Pinecone]

Typical survey, worded to get the desired answers.

Used aircraft sales were UP during the pandemic. New aircraft sales were UP during the pandemic. Airline hiring is UP to the point that the local school cannot keep CFIs as they get hired by the regionals. Heck, several of them had a CHOICE OF AIRLINE JOB OFFERS. When has this been the case EVER?

 

[TCABM]

… However in my survey, I did include the option to disagree, agree, or stand as neutral for the questions…

No, you did not. The set of questions to choose between two statements in particular did not allow for an N/A response despite some being N/A for me.

A better design would have Likert scaled the responses and allowed for branching to the various applicable populations. I’ll throw you a bone; given the FAA’s 2021 estimated pilot population you’ll meed about 384 valid submissions to get p value of .05.

 

[SamSES]

Typical survey, worded to get the desired answers.

Used aircraft sales were UP during the pandemic. New aircraft sales were UP during the pandemic. Airline hiring is UP to the point that the local school cannot keep CFIs as they get hired by the regionals. Heck, several of them had a CHOICE OF AIRLINE JOB OFFERS. When has this been the case EVER?

CFIs have always walked into regional airline jobs, that’s kinda their shtick

 

[Sonali Bhat]

No, you did not. The set of questions to choose between two statements in particular did not allow for an N/A response despite some being N/A for me.

A better design would have Likert scaled the responses and allowed for branching to the various applicable populations. I’ll throw you a bone; given the FAA’s 2021 estimated pilot population you’ll meed about 384 valid submissions to get p value of .05.

I get what you’re saying, but I think that those specific set of questions was a one or the other type thing(at least a majority of them are).. especially since they were somewhat general questions.. I may decide to exclude certain ones that could’ve possibly had a neutral option.
Now regarding the valid submissions, do you have any other advice on how to get to that number? Would it be extremely bad to only have 200-300 participants?

 

[Sonali Bhat]

Typical survey, worded to get the desired answers.

Used aircraft sales were UP during the pandemic. New aircraft sales were UP during the pandemic. Airline hiring is UP to the point that the local school cannot keep CFIs as they get hired by the regionals. Heck, several of them had a CHOICE OF AIRLINE JOB OFFERS. When has this been the case EVER?

Yes, it may be worded in a certain way, but that doesn’t mean that you aren’t allowed to express your opinion. There is definitely a disagree/neutral option and an option to pick viewpoints on both sides. Same with the open ended questions, you can mention those things that you just did and it will work. Your opinion is your opinion and it is not my intent to sway anyone in one way or another. Personally, my intentions are to use this data in order to guide my research.. not to manipulate others into thinking negatively about the pandemic. Even if it is not originally what I might’ve expected, I believe that I can still change the direction of my research before I start writing, as I’m waiting to achieve a certain amount of responses.

 

[Sac Arrow]

I bit. What struck me was that in terms of the negative effects of the pandemic, aviation was the least that was impacted personally. It somewhat difficult to respond to some of the survey questions accurately with the answer lists provided.

 

[TCABM]

I get what you’re saying, but I think that those specific set of questions was a one or the other type thing(at least a majority of them are).. especially since they were somewhat general questions.. I may decide to exclude certain ones that could’ve possibly had a neutral option.
Now regarding the valid submissions, do you have any other advice on how to get to that number? Would it be extremely bad to only have 200-300 participants?

Based on the population pool, you need 384 valid responses. You should have determined what made a response valid in the design phase. For example, if you wanted to known impacts on airline pilots, you should have qualifying criteria or questions, such as only analyzing responses from respondents who selected ATP as certificate type, an employer type of “part 121 airline”, occupation as pilot as minimum qualifiers. You could delve further to ask if the respondent is a management pilot, primarily performed non-flying duties as a union rep, training or check airman, etc.

It’s not bad it you don’t get 384, it just means you’ll have to figure out your p value based on the number of respondents and if it’s greater than .05, you’ll need to understand what that means re: statistical significance.

Hopefully you’re just starting this class and not close to finishing because while it may he AP, it is definitely not to the level of an undergrad intro to research class.

 

[Rgbeard]

moderators - can we get this place sprayed?

@RyanB @nauga

 

[Sonali Bhat]

Based on the population pool, you need 384 valid responses. You should have determined what made a response valid in the design phase. For example, if you wanted to known impacts on airline pilots, you should have qualifying criteria or questions, such as only analyzing responses from respondents who selected ATP as certificate type, an employer type of “part 121 airline”, occupation as pilot as minimum qualifiers. You could delve further to ask if the respondent is a management pilot, primarily performed non-flying duties as a union rep, training or check airman, etc.

It’s not bad it you don’t get 384, it just means you’ll have to figure out your p value based on the number of respondents and if it’s greater than .05, you’ll need to understand what that means re: statistical significance.

Hopefully you’re just starting this class and not close to finishing because while it may he AP, it is definitely not to the level of an undergrad intro to research class.

Yeah, I got the first part. I’m just a bit concerned about some of the statistical elements such as finding p values and things like that. Our teacher did not teach nor is going to help us with any of these things. He literally said we’re on our own for the rest of the year. I wouldn’t say we’re close to finishing the class, but we’re definitely midway through it so I’m on a little bit oh a time crunch. If we had longer time I feel like I could construct a better survey or try some other topic, but it is very limited so I still feel like I can make do with the current topic.

 

[JOhnH]

People are forgetting that this is a High School Class. It is NOT a research project designed to influence public policy. It is designed to teach students HOW to do a research project. I for one learn a lot through mistakes, and I certainly made a lot of them in many of my high school projects. She has received a lot of good feedback and constructive criticism. She has also received (IMHO) some harsh, undeserved criticism Fortunately, she seems to be taking it well.

 

[Sonali Bhat]

People are forgetting that this is a High School Class. It is NOT a research project designed to influence public policy. It is designed to teach students HOW to do a research project. I for one learn a lot through mistakes, and I certainly made a lot of them in many of my high school projects. She has received a lot of good feedback and constructive criticism. She has also received (IMHO) some harsh, undeserved criticism Fortunately, she seems to be taking it well.

Oh yeah for sure, thank you! I’m trying my best to take the harsh criticism well and ask for examples. The class is definitely a learning experience and an introduction to research. Our teacher has not really taught us anything pertaining to research (for starters, making a good survey) and statistics, so I feel like this makes it harder since the class is forced to rely on outside sources for help.

 

[JOhnH]

People are forgetting that this is a High School Class. It is NOT a research project designed to influence public policy. It is designed to teach students HOW to do a research project. I for one learn a lot through mistakes, and I certainly made a lot of them in many of my high school projects. She has received a lot of good feedback and constructive criticism. She has also received (IMHO) some harsh, undeserved criticism Fortunately, she seems to be taking it well.

Oh, and she has also participated in a few other conversations, unlike many of the student drop-ins that pick our brains then disappear. Perhaps she will continue to participate . . .
If we don't run her off.

 

[TCABM]

Yeah, I got the first part. I’m just a bit concerned about some of the statistical elements such as finding p values and things like that. Our teacher did not teach nor is going to help us with any of these things. He literally said we’re on our own for the rest of the year. I wouldn’t say we’re close to finishing the class, but we’re definitely midway through it so I’m on a little bit oh a time crunch. If we had longer time I feel like I could construct a better survey or try some other topic, but it is very limited so I still feel like I can make do with the current topic.

I think where you’re at is first understanding what do you have to do to complete the assignment. If you don’t need the rigor of statistical significance, then don’t go there with it.

I’d like to assume you need to form an hypothesis and then test that hypothesis against a representative sample. If that’s the case, then you should just define your sample size of n as the number of responses you received and define valid responses as fully completed surveys, i.e. don’t count abandoned attempts as valid responses.

 

[Racerx]

Our teacher has not really taught us anything pertaining to research

Shocking.

My one nit is the questions were a bit repetitive and had an obvious bias slant. Your bias was a little heavy and that's where the push poll comment came from. Usually you're unaware of your bias when framing questions and that make it tough. And as I mentioned previously, this really is a sore subject. Covid caused a lot of problems, but from my perspective most of the problems arose when governments got more involved..
As is often the case.

I do appreciate you commenting in other topics and being in this thread. We don't see either often.

I believe @TCABM was the one who mentioned you have multiple data points. My answers as a private pilot and aircraft owner are probably going to be quite different than the ATP that was furloughed. Around here there seems to be more GA folks. I might try contacting AOPA to see if they can help you out or give some advice or information that might help you form different questions/answers.

 

[Kritchlow]

Typical survey, worded to get the desired answers.

Used aircraft sales were UP during the pandemic. New aircraft sales were UP during the pandemic. Airline hiring is UP to the point that the local school cannot keep CFIs as they get hired by the regionals. Heck, several of them had a CHOICE OF AIRLINE JOB OFFERS. When has this been the case EVER?

COVID was a show stopper for airline jobs. It was the (post COVID paranoia) void that needed to be filled that caused the hiring spree.

 

[Pinecone]

CFIs have always walked into regional airline jobs, that’s kinda their shtick

Not in the numbers these days. And not with offers from multiple airlines.

 

[SamSES]

Not in the numbers these days. And not with offers from multiple airlines.

?

When I first got my ATP a long time ago I had offers from plenty of regionals, I don’t think there was a regional I couldn’t have gotten a job with

 

[Sonali Bhat]

Shocking.

My one nit is the questions were a bit repetitive and had an obvious bias slant. Your bias was a little heavy and that's where the push poll comment came from. Usually you're unaware of your bias when framing questions and that make it tough. And as I mentioned previously, this really is a sore subject. Covid caused a lot of problems, but from my perspective most of the problems arose when governments got more involved..
As is often the case.

I do appreciate you commenting in other topics and being in this thread. We don't see either often.

I believe @TCABM was the one who mentioned you have multiple data points. My answers as a private pilot and aircraft owner are probably going to be quite different than the ATP that was furloughed. Around here there seems to be more GA folks. I might try contacting AOPA to see if they can help you out or give some advice or information that might help you form different questions/answers.

Yeah I definitely understand. I honestly think I’ve learned a lot now, because when I first sent out this survey I thought it was golden. I was definitely not right because as time is progressing I’m seeing certain errors like bias and repetitiveness as you mentioned. I am in a bit of a time crunch so I still think I can use this data for the good, with the exemption of certain questions that might’ve been structured horribly. I honestly didn’t know how much thought went into forming the best questions and it’s very interesting to see now. Also, I agree with the government thing.

Anyways yeah, I definitely wanna being more active here when I’m available, it’s nice to be a part of a community.

And that’s super nice of you, I really appreciate the help!!

 

[Sonali Bhat]

Shocking.

My one nit is the questions were a bit repetitive and had an obvious bias slant. Your bias was a little heavy and that's where the push poll comment came from. Usually you're unaware of your bias when framing questions and that make it tough. And as I mentioned previously, this really is a sore subject. Covid caused a lot of problems, but from my perspective most of the problems arose when governments got more involved..
As is often the case.

I do appreciate you commenting in other topics and being in this thread. We don't see either often.

I believe @TCABM was the one who mentioned you have multiple data points. My answers as a private pilot and aircraft owner are probably going to be quite different than the ATP that was furloughed. Around here there seems to be more GA folks. I might try contacting AOPA to see if they can help you out or give some advice or information that might help you form different questions/answers.

Also, do you think the results of this survey will still be good enough to use in the paper? If I had more time I might’ve made a new survey but that’s obviously not the case. Could also be hard to receive a lot of responses again due to the lack of incentive offered for this one. I should also mention that some high scoring papers from this class did not have a super super thorough examination of their data.. One that I just read only shared screenshots of their findings and explained them.

 

[SkyChaser]

Also, do you think the results of this survey will still be good enough to use in the paper? If I had more time I might’ve made a new survey but that’s obviously not the case. Could also be hard to receive a lot of responses again due to the lack of incentive offered for this one. I should also mention that some high scoring papers from this class did not have a super super thorough examination of their data.. One that I just read only shared screenshots of their findings and explained them.

I think the data can be used, and maybe you can even write about how biases in survey questions may affect the results, and what effects that might have had on your survey. If this is supposed to be a class about learning how to research, that's definitely a big part of researching - understanding biases and how they play into the big picture.

 

[Morgan3820]

Feel free to fill-in the survey however it works for you and put my name on it

 

[TCABM]

…I honestly think I’ve learned a lot now, because when I first sent out this survey I thought it was golden…
And that’s super nice of you, I really appreciate the help!!

Q: How much literature have you reviewed to form your hypothesis? In plain english, what have you read on the topic that’s made you decide to ask the question that’s going to be answered by your survey responses?

Or was the plan to do a survey to figure out where to go next in the research?

 

[judypilot]

Okay, I understand the general concept of what you’re trying to say. However in my survey, I did include the option to disagree, agree, or stand as neutral for the questions. In your example question, it is 100% implying that your drunk driving caused deaths. I believe that my questions are only making statements, but of course you can still say that you do not agree with these statements (or N/A, that they don’t apply to you, in certain cases). On the other hand, I do see how the last set of “Agree, Neutral, Disagree” questions come off as one sided, as well as the open ended questions. After I get to analyze my data, I’ll possibly exclude certain questions (such as the free response question that was indicating that there was a crisis) in my research. And in terms of analysis of data I’m still not fully sure how to do it the correct way since I’ve never done something like this before, so I’m hoping to learn from ideas and mistakes along the way. Thanks for the suggestions.

The one thing I did NOT like--"prefer not to answer" should be an option for yearly income. I almost never complete surveys that do not offer that option.

 

[Pinecone]

just click the lowest or highest choice.

 

[jimhorner]

Sorry, but this survey is poorly designed. Take the following question as an example. Try answering 0 to each question (the case for me). Can't do it. 0 is a valid answer according to the question, but the survey doesn't allow it.

Feels quite biased as if the questions have been constructed with a particular outcome in mind. Reminds me of those "surveys" from various political orgnizations that come in the mail:

On a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 being bad and 5 being the worst, rate how politician xyz is doing in the job.

Biased much?

 

[SkyChaser]

Sorry, but this survey is poorly designed. Take the following question as an example. Try answering 0 to each question (the case for me). Can't do it. 0 is a valid answer according to the question, but the survey doesn't allow it.

Feels quite biased as if the questions have been constructed with a particular outcome in mind. Reminds me of those "surveys" from various political orgnizations that come in the mail:

On a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 being bad and 5 being the worst, rate how politician xyz is doing in the job.

Biased much?

It could have been done better, but if you click once on each slider, it pops halfway between 0 and 1 and still reads 0 as the input answer.

 

[ebetancourt]

I just took the survey. Don't think it was that bad. The instructions should mention clicking on side bar at the zero mark. One of the issues mentioned previously is the difficulty in discussing "Aviation." We are all so different. I fly off a private field, don't use my airplane for travel, fly strictly for fun and skills building. I've had my certificates for a long time, so the training cost question was a wild guess. I didn't pay for my training, the generous taxpayers did. The only things I've paid for was a checkride for my CFI-H, and then the training and check ride for my CFI-SE some years later, plus some recurrent training. Just started getting recurrent on helicopters yesterday, so that bill will be significant.

The OP's writing skills on the responses in this thread, kind of indicate their admittance to AP classes was deserved. Hopefully this helps the education goals and maybe toughens skin a little.

It was a voluntary opportunity to help a high school student trying to learn and grow. Worth the effort.

 

[Sonali Bhat]

I think the data can be used, and maybe you can even write about how biases in survey questions may affect the results, and what effects that might have had on your survey. If this is supposed to be a class about learning how to research, that's definitely a big part of researching - understanding biases and how they play into the big picture.

Yeah for sure, that would definitely be a good idea. Even though the class is “Advanced Placement”, it’s still an introductory class to learn.. Especially since there’s no other classes like this lower than the AP level.

 

[Sonali Bhat]

Sorry, but this survey is poorly designed. Take the following question as an example. Try answering 0 to each question (the case for me). Can't do it. 0 is a valid answer according to the question, but the survey doesn't allow it.

Feels quite biased as if the questions have been constructed with a particular outcome in mind. Reminds me of those "surveys" from various political orgnizations that come in the mail:

On a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 being bad and 5 being the worst, rate how politician xyz is doing in the job.

Biased much?

Referring to the sliders, I’m not sure why that’s happening. When I tested the survey before I sent it out (and recently), entering 0 worked just fine for me. Simply clicking it instead of sliding did the trick. I just designed the survey, not the software itself so if I could fix it I would but that’s unfortunately not the case. Might have to remove that question from my data, unless I separately grouped the people who put 5 and under differently than those who said 5 and over.

With the next part of the comment, I can see what you mean by biased in terms of the question structure, but I don’t understand what’s so terrible about it in the long run because there is an option to pick the lowest option (0, or 1 if that doesn’t work apparently). Like even if someone thinks that I want people to choose a high number, it doesn’t bother me either way as to what people say. There’s no obligation to say you’ve been severely affected, there’s numbers to choose for low severity just for this. I’m genuinely curious as to how this question could be reworded, so please reply to this and let me know if possible. Also, not sure if you’ve seen my other comments but keep in mind that this is my first time constructing and distributing a survey, and it’s only a high school class. Thanks

 

[Sonali Bhat]

Q: How much literature have you reviewed to form your hypothesis? In plain english, what have you read on the topic that’s made you decide to ask the question that’s going to be answered by your survey responses?

Or was the plan to do a survey to figure out where to go next in the research?

Honestly, when we started the school year, our teacher asked everyone about our research questions. When I had the discussion with him I was clueless, so he asked me what I was interested in and I told him that I was a student pilot and all that stuff. He started bringing up topics about the pilot shortage, the covid pandemic, etc.. I thought it would be a nice idea, and noticed that there wasn’t that much research that surveyed all kinds of pilots and asked them about how the pandemic affected them in the aviation world.

Most of the research out there was on the airlines and how covid impacted them, so I feel like doing something with all types of pilots can make it a tad bit more unique, especially when I can separate the groups and see the correlations between how each group was affected. Life for example, GA pilots definitely weren’t negatively affected as much as career pilots, and for a lot it was even beneficial.. I obviously wasn’t expecting this data, so I could 100% use it to represent the differences between the two groups. However, I still feel like this survey helped guide my research a lot. (I actually made a good edit to my research question while responding to this, which is super convenient!!)

 

[Sonali Bhat]

I just took the survey. Don't think it was that bad. The instructions should mention clicking on side bar at the zero mark. One of the issues mentioned previously is the difficulty in discussing "Aviation." We are all so different. I fly off a private field, don't use my airplane for travel, fly strictly for fun and skills building. I've had my certificates for a long time, so the training cost question was a wild guess. I didn't pay for my training, the generous taxpayers did. The only things I've paid for was a checkride for my CFI-H, and then the training and check ride for my CFI-SE some years later, plus some recurrent training. Just started getting recurrent on helicopters yesterday, so that bill will be significant.

The OP's writing skills on the responses in this thread, kind of indicate their admittance to AP classes was deserved. Hopefully this helps the education goals and maybe toughens skin a little.

It was a voluntary opportunity to help a high school student trying to learn and grow. Worth the effort.

Yeah, you’re right- everyone’s different and I guess that makes it hard to collect data with all sorts of things, especially aviation. I hope I can use the different groups of pilots that I surveyed to point out their differences, and why they might be that way; based on other people’s research (which we can definitely use in our paper).

Thanks for the feedback and compliment, good luck on your training!

 

[Racerx]

I would definitely keep whatever data you get. After all, your teachers lack of guidance shouldn't make you start over. Completed surveys are still complete, I think you could have had potentially more completed surveys had it been worded a little "softer". Like others have said, learning is (hopefully) part of this exercise. I was a little annoyed about some of the questions being so biased and didn't complete the survey until I saw you were actually active and accepting of the criticism.

To take the previous screenshot of the question as an example. You used the word "severe" 3 times. "Not severe at all" doesn't mean COVID had absolutely zero iota of an impact on my flying life. It just means I wasnt severely impacted. I think a better wording may have been "In regards to Aviation, how did COVID impact you? With 10 being severe and 0 being not at all." When it comes to questions like that, it's clear how you felt about it and I'm much less interested in continuing with a poll to substantiate you're hypothesis. It's fine to have a hypothesis, but you really don't want the audience to know how you feel based on the questions. That's the opinion of some dumb welder who barely graduated high school. So it's worth what you paid. (FWIW, I actually graduated a semester early but that's more of an indictment of our public school system than a credit to me.)

As far as others comments about income, I think that that information is actually relevant to the topic of economic impact with regards to potential flight training, and I hate answering that question as much as anyone. Now, what I thought was irrelevant was occupation. If I'm not a paid pilot or in the aviation field in any way how is that relevant? I was able to figure out moving the bar just off zero but not 1 trick. I don't think that's youre fault, just a nuance to make sure people actually answered.

As for my comment about contacting AOPA, I was saying it more like "if I were you... I might consider contacting them"... I'm sure they've at least written some articles they might refer you to or possibly done their own polling that might help you out. If not from the data then from how questions were phrased. Contacting a local flight school or two to maybe get more student pilots to poll is another idea if you want that demographic.

Another interesting bit from the GA side of things. Van's Aircraft is the largest kit plane manufacturer. During COVID they had their best sales and their biggest problem was supply chain and shipping. They use a place I believe in the Philippines for "quick build" kits and due to government mandated shutdowns they were having trouble fulfilling orders they were already struggling to fulfill. They put out some good YouTube stuff on the topic if that's of any interest to you.

 

[Racerx]

I just took the survey. Don't think it was that bad. The instructions should mention clicking on side bar at the zero mark. One of the issues mentioned previously is the difficulty in discussing "Aviation." We are all so different. I fly off a private field, don't use my airplane for travel, fly strictly for fun and skills building. I've had my certificates for a long time, so the training cost question was a wild guess. I didn't pay for my training, the generous taxpayers did. The only things I've paid for was a checkride for my CFI-H, and then the training and check ride for my CFI-SE some years later, plus some recurrent training. Just started getting recurrent on helicopters yesterday, so that bill will be significant.

The OP's writing skills on the responses in this thread, kind of indicate their admittance to AP classes was deserved. Hopefully this helps the education goals and maybe toughens skin a little.

It was a voluntary opportunity to help a high school student trying to learn and grow. Worth the effort.

To give another example for cost of training...I bought a plane and only had to pay the CFI his/her hourly. Significantly cuts down on cost when you're not renting the plane @130 an hour x55 hours....or does it? Should I add the cost of the plane?

 

[TCABM]

Honestly, when we started the school year, our teacher asked everyone about our research questions. When I had the discussion with him I was clueless, so he asked me what I was interested in and I told him that I was a student pilot and all that stuff. He started bringing up topics about the pilot shortage, the covid pandemic, etc.. I thought it would be a nice idea, and noticed that there wasn’t that much research that surveyed all kinds of pilots and asked them about how the pandemic affected them in the aviation world.

Most of the research out there was on the airlines and how covid impacted them, so I feel like doing something with all types of pilots can make it a tad bit more unique, especially when I can separate the groups and see the correlations between how each group was affected. Life for example, GA pilots definitely weren’t negatively affected as much as career pilots, and for a lot it was even beneficial.. I obviously wasn’t expecting this data, so I could 100% use it to represent the differences between the two groups. However, I still feel like this survey helped guide my research a lot. (I actually made a good edit to my research question while responding to this, which is super convenient!!)

Ok, that sheds some light and what you’ve learned about the different groups sometimes happens even in the most rigorous studies. As you learn more on researching, you’ll learn of more resources that help find relevant literature and when you find gaps, that needs to be taken into consideration because a gap can indicate the need for original research to be done and that gets into writing book-length dissertations.

Also, be careful when you get to correlation. Correlation is a good thing, but it does not imply causal factors. For example, that some GA pilots found it beneficial may have been an effect of things totally unrelated to whatever you’ve defined as being a part of a pandemic.

Finally, everyone’s excited to get the surveys out and back and crunch the numbers because in the end, everyone hopes the numbers proves them right and it’s a feather in your cap. The survey, while important, is only as good as the design and the design is only as good as the quality of the literature available to review and synthesizing what is learned in the review.

 

[Sonali Bhat]

I would definitely keep whatever data you get. After all, your teachers lack of guidance shouldn't make you start over. Completed surveys are still complete, I think you could have had potentially more completed surveys had it been worded a little "softer". Like others have said, learning is (hopefully) part of this exercise. I was a little annoyed about some of the questions being so biased and didn't complete the survey until I saw you were actually active and accepting of the criticism.

To take the previous screenshot of the question as an example. You used the word "severe" 3 times. "Not severe at all" doesn't mean COVID had absolutely zero iota of an impact on my flying life. It just means I wasnt severely impacted. I think a better wording may have been "In regards to Aviation, how did COVID impact you? With 10 being severe and 0 being not at all." When it comes to questions like that, it's clear how you felt about it and I'm much less interested in continuing with a poll to substantiate you're hypothesis. It's fine to have a hypothesis, but you really don't want the audience to know how you feel based on the questions. That's the opinion of some dumb welder who barely graduated high school. So it's worth what you paid. (FWIW, I actually graduated a semester early but that's more of an indictment of our public school system than a credit to me.)

As far as others comments about income, I think that that information is actually relevant to the topic of economic impact with regards to potential flight training, and I hate answering that question as much as anyone. Now, what I thought was irrelevant was occupation. If I'm not a paid pilot or in the aviation field in any way how is that relevant? I was able to figure out moving the bar just off zero but not 1 trick. I don't think that's youre fault, just a nuance to make sure people actually answered.

As for my comment about contacting AOPA, I was saying it more like "if I were you... I might consider contacting them"... I'm sure they've at least written some articles they might refer you to or possibly done their own polling that might help you out. If not from the data then from how questions were phrased. Contacting a local flight school or two to maybe get more student pilots to poll is another idea if you want that demographic.

Another interesting bit from the GA side of things. Van's Aircraft is the largest kit plane manufacturer. During COVID they had their best sales and their biggest problem was supply chain and shipping. They use a place I believe in the Philippines for "quick build" kits and due to government mandated shutdowns they were having trouble fulfilling orders they were already struggling to fulfill. They put out some good YouTube stuff on the topic if that's of any interest to you.

Honestly that makes a lot of sense.. It wasn’t until after I sent the previous reply where I realized how this question seemed pushy. It kinda looked like I was implying that you had indeed, been impacted by covid, even though that wasn’t the intention. Damn, I guess wording really does matter a lot and it’s really hard to see your own biases at all. Before sending this survey out, I showed it to my teacher and he said it was good. Maybe I should’ve sent it to an actual pilot or someone who’s knowledgeable in research.. (I thought my teacher would be knowledgeable considering that he is teaching AP Research.. guess not.)

I agree with the income part too, no idea why I included a specification option. I think my motive at the beginning of the survey was, “get as much info as possible, even if it’s not completely relevant. if you don’t need it, you can always discard it, but if you later realize you need it, you can’t go back.” I guess it’s like a better safe than sorry type of approach.

Yep, I’ll probably contact AOPA soon and see what they can do/offer. With flight schools, I already got some people within my flight school to fill out the survey, didn’t really think of contacting other flight schools so I might try that out too. I’ll definitely check out Van’s aircraft as well, seems interesting.

 

[Half Fast]

Like even if someone thinks that I want people to choose a high number, it doesn’t bother me either way as to what people say. There’s no obligation to say you’ve been severely affected, there’s numbers to choose for low severity just for this. I’m g

Suppose COVID has had a positive effect? Perhaps I’ve had a financial advantage from working at home and not paying for gas for a 40 mile commute. Maybe I’m not in a hazardous environment because I’m at home instead of in a manufacturing plant. Your arrangement does not allow for that possibility. Stop assuming harmful effects.

Phrase the question so that 0 is maximum negative impact, 5 is no impact at all, and 10 is maximum positive impact.

 

[TCABM]

…Phrase the question so that 0 is maximum negative impact, 5 is no impact at all, and 10 is maximum positive impact.

That is called a Likert scale. Usually an odd number of choices (1 to 5 or 7) with the middle number being neutral, the low side being degrees of negative sentiment and the high side being degrees of positive sentiment. Different survey platforms handle not applicable responses in a variety of ways, from crude to elegant or not at all, so a lot of thought goes into both design and platform choice.

 

[Sonali Bhat]

Ok, that sheds some light and what you’ve learned about the different groups sometimes happens even in the most rigorous studies. As you learn more on researching, you’ll learn of more resources that help find relevant literature and when you find gaps, that needs to be taken into consideration because a gap can indicate the need for original research to be done and that gets into writing book-length dissertations.

Also, be careful when you get to correlation. Correlation is a good thing, but it does not imply causal factors. For example, that some GA pilots found it beneficial may have been an effect of things totally unrelated to whatever you’ve defined as being a part of a pandemic.

Finally, everyone’s excited to get the surveys out and back and crunch the numbers because in the end, everyone hopes the numbers proves them right and it’s a feather in your cap. The survey, while important, is only as good as the design and the design is only as good as the quality of the literature available to review and synthesizing what is learned in the review.

You make a good point with correlation, I’ll definitely be sure to consider factors included in the survey. Maybe my open ended questions could help on that one too. In terms of finding a gap, I feel like I didn’t truly understand what the phrase meant until now. The teacher explained it to us but it wasn’t fully understood my the majority of my classmates. Everything feels like it’s making more sense now. I’m glad I can write this paper and use it as experience to help with future projects. Definitely will calm down on the bias in the next one and get it cross checked by people who are actually knowledgeable before sending anything out.

That’s all true, it will be nice to analyze the final set of data and see what I can be able to write out of it. I could mention survey flaws and other things in the limitations section which is required for this paper.

 

[Racerx]

Honestly that makes a lot of sense.. It wasn’t until after I sent the previous reply where I realized how this question seemed pushy. It kinda looked like I was implying that you had indeed, been impacted by covid, even though that wasn’t the intention. Damn, I guess wording really does matter a lot and it’s really hard to see your own biases at all. Before sending this survey out, I showed it to my teacher and he said it was good. Maybe I should’ve sent it to an actual pilot or someone who’s knowledgeable in research.. (I thought my teacher would be knowledgeable considering that he is teaching AP Research.. guess not.)

I agree with the income part too, no idea why I included a specification option. I think my motive at the beginning of the survey was, “get as much info as possible, even if it’s not completely relevant. if you don’t need it, you can always discard it, but if you later realize you need it, you can’t go back.” I guess it’s like a better safe than sorry type of approach.

Yep, I’ll probably contact AOPA soon and see what they can do/offer. With flight schools, I already got some people within my flight school to fill out the survey, didn’t really think of contacting other flight schools so I might try that out too. I’ll definitely check out Van’s aircraft as well, seems interesting.

I don't think sending it to a pilot specifically would have been necessary. Just some cynical curmudgeon.

But yes, it is extremely difficult to realize your own biases. Often you need someone with a completely different perspective or views to be aware of it. I'd suspect your teacher views these things similarly to you, as evidenced by him having the idea about the covid topic.

Self analysis on anything is one of the hardest things to do. I suck at it.

 

[Sonali Bhat]

Suppose COVID has had a positive effect? Perhaps I’ve had a financial advantage from working at home and not paying for gas for a 40 mile commute. Maybe I’m not in a hazardous environment because I’m at home instead of in a manufacturing plant. Your arrangement does not allow for that possibility. Stop assuming harmful effects.

Phrase the question so that 0 is maximum negative impact, 5 is no impact at all, and 10 is maximum positive impact.

Yeah.. I feel like when making this survey, I thought of negatives only and not positives, but I also thought that the wording within the survey allowed the “0” option to mean that it had no negative impact— which I thought was significant enough. Guess the usage of “severe” ruined that motive and didn’t allow for a positive approach to be implied, even though in my mind I thought 0 would be the implied “positive option”.. if you get what I’m trying to say.

Also, my teacher’s brother in law is a pilot, and he told him about my project and survey. The brother in law apparently responded to my teacher saying “COVID = bad for pilots. Survey Done.” Honestly feel like this led me to go in the negative light and not be considerate of many other factors. However, I hope the open ended responses allowed people to express the positive impacts as well, (even though the questions didn’t necessarily say that).