Thanks so much for responding to my post. I appreciate your reasoning but I would like to point out the following:

a) Neither your press release nor the summary report provide an indication how the survey used for collecting data was used to provide the context. Maybe this could be made a bit clearer next time?

b) As well, double-barrelled questions are double-barrelled questions and they result in respondents being confused and not sure what to answer. For the researcher it becomes very difficult to know to which part of the question the person answered.
Unless that is really known, what insights are gained from this?

c) So you present indications. Unfortunately, again your press release nor summary report talk about indications but research findings instead.

Nevertheless, I surely want to see the next report about this longitudinal study (3-year study) and I hope you will send me a link/copy when it is being published.

Finally, I am also aware and point this out above that whilst the researchers including you as the person responsible tried to make a few things clear that the press, including The Times' reporter missed, because they either did not understand or else might not have taken the time to read it in full.

Thanks so much for sharing

Regards
Urs

Thanks so much for responding to my post. I appreciate your reasoning but I would like to point out three issues below if I may:

a) Neither your press release nor the summary report provide an indication that survey data were used for context purposes only. Maybe this could be made a bit clearer next time?

b) As well, double-barrelled questions are double-barrelled questions and they result in respondents being confused and not sure what to answer. For the researcher it becomes very difficult to know to which part of the question the person answered.
So how is one than supposed to interpret these data?

c) You state that the study / report presents indication only – not findings. This distinction does neither seem to come across very clearly in your press release nor the summary report. The term used is ‘research findings’ which has a vastly different meaning, of course.

Nevertheless, I surely want to see the next report about this longitudinal study (3-year study) and I hope you will send me a link/copy when it is being published.

Finally, misunderstandings happened in part because probably the media did not take the time to carefully study the material including the summary report you provided. The result is that indications become facts.nI have tried to make this clearer in my post above but I can see with your comment that I have not succeeded fully in getting this across to my readers. For this I apologise.

Thanks so much for sharing

Regards
Urs

I am a Director of Education for Change, the company commissioned to develop and deliver this Researchers of Tomorrow study for the BL and JISC, which is the subject of your discussion. I am also the research director on the study.

I would just like to point out three things:

First, this is a qualitative research study, using survey questionnaires only to provide context for a longitudinal qualitative tracking study of 70 research participants which is ongoing.
Second, the question about 'what kind of information technology user am I' uses a fairly standard technique of proposing statements about technology use and asking respondents to position themselves as an IT user by selecting the one that feels most appropriate to them – certainty about “how the respondent understood and answered the question” is not relevant here since we are asking them to self-asses a set of qualitative characteristics that cannot be 'proved' empirically.
Finally, please bear in mind that this is a three year study (as the summary report at http://explorationforchange.net/attachments/054... explains).

This first interim report focuses on the results of our first survey of the wider context of doctoral studies (which, by the way, attracted over 5500 responses). Hard conclusions about any researcher behaviour would be premature at this stage – what we present are interesting indications.