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I am working on a research project assigned to us by one of our teachers. We were asked to do some basic scientific research in the medical/health sciences through the use of a survey. It's mainly busy work and the subject itself is basically busywork.
I am doing a survey on Environmental Factors that will lead to Smoking recreational drugs and the Continuation of their use. I will look at a couple of factors and correlate them between smoking and non smoking groups. I basically used the non smoking group as a control and the smoking group as the main target of the study. However, the main problem with that is the fact that our sample of smokers is ridiculously small due to the nature of the university, we have plenty of non smokers in our study so far and a small percentage of smokers which is no good for a proper statistical study. And I would love if people on TL would please out and fill out the survey which will not take up a lot of your time. It's basically a brief data based survey(a horrible one at that) that will only take up 2-4 minutes of your time. Here is the link:
Anonymous Smoking Survey
I do realize that the methodology and distribution of this survey is basically flawed- it's online only.
The questions are horrible, especially:
The first question which lumps many kinds of recreational drugs into one group. Whereas each group is generally different, marijuana smokers are a different demographic than tobacco smokers who start up in different ways.
The socioeconomic and family views questions on the survey are terribly vague and pretty general( wont do much in a data based survey). There are many other flaws that were criticized by one of the psych prof in our university.
But I do hope you people can help with filling out the survey. And I do realize that this might be against the site rules but I would love a bit of TL manpower. And if this works out I have a pretty good project/post that will come up.
Thank you.
tl;dr I am doing a survey on smoking recreational drugs and I hope you can fill it out.
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Lol, grouping cigarettes and marihuana into one..  gl!
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On April 19 2010 04:28 Navane wrote:Lol, grouping cigarettes and marihuana into one.. gl!
Thanks, I know that was pretty dumb. But at the time it didn't seem to be that dumb. The groups who tend to smoke pot here(middle east) tend to start up from cigarettes. And I had to start somewhere with the survey I suppose, the problem is where to stop, do you stop at tobacco cigarettes or do you encompass all neurodrugs(where you are pretty much including every single person in this planet). But yeah that is dumb.
In hindsight smoking was a really arbitrary and stupid thing to pick, as it is the chemicals and not the method of ingestion that really affects the people, but again it's the most popular form that people use(other than drinking coffee ofc).
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Survey completed.
The questions were very generalized.
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ya dude, those questions are far too generic. But I'ma heavy smoker, and I filled it out.
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Korea (South)11586 Posts
done. ez pz.
god i think i should quit smoking rofl but i just bought a carton...................
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Putting pot in with tobacco really fucks with the survey imo. They are 2 completely different things.
I am trying to fill out the survey, but what do you mean by environment near the end of the survey? I'm not sure how to answer those 2 questions.
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Grown up in a smoking environment, i.e; parents smoke at home when you're young etc.... at least that's how I interpreted it.
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On April 19 2010 04:57 k20a wrote:
Grown up in a smoking environment, i.e; parents smoke at home when you're young etc.... at least that's how I interpreted it.
ya, that seems reasonable, but what about current environment? Does me smoking pot count as living in a smoking environment? or do others around me also have to be smoking for that to count?
edit: also if the smoking is occurring outside does that count as living in a smoking environment? Are we talking about a physical environment or a social environment?
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On April 19 2010 04:53 Mastermind wrote:
Putting pot in with tobacco really fucks with the survey imo. They are 2 completely different things.
I am trying to fill out the survey, but what do you mean by environment near the end of the survey? I'm not sure how to answer those 2 questions.
By environment, I mean for example: is your high school/neighborhood filled with smokers, or is there plenty of second hand smoking in your household environment and family gatherings and what not. Well it's your environment if it has an effect on you, which is just as vague as the question itself. I would say it's both physical and social in some way.
I agree with them being separated ruining the survey, but generally where I come from pot doesn't come by as easily as cigarettes, and most of the people who do pot started from cigarettes. It is quite different in different countries, but when I was doing the survey I messed that part up and I guess I cant do much about it now.
As for the questions being too generalized criticism, I agree with that completely, however, It makes data gathering much easier and easier to correlate( this isn't that proper of a study). And there is a spectrum of vagueness or tl;drness that you want to avoid when going with specific questions such as psychological factors and what not. I could collect a survey on smokers only and I probably should have.
Thanks for the criticism so far
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Ya, it is much different where I live. Here in Canada most young people smoke pot, but do not smoke cigarettes. If someone young(under 30) smokes cigarettes then you can guarantee they smoke pot, but not the other way around, which is probably the opposite of what you are use to in Bahrain.
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United States24745 Posts
I don't think grouping cigs/weed/etc together is that unreasonable.... there are most likely similarities between what leads people to smoke cigs with what leads them to smoke other things the same way I don't use either of them.
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I don't know if you took this into consideration, but you should be careful with the age/education thing.
My current education level is not the same as the education level I will have in 10 years. I'm in undergrad at the moment, which isn't too bad, but if you have someone answering your survey that is in middle school and they check the Elementary School box, they are very different from people who say, due to wars or gender inequality etc. were not able to complete any education after elementary school.
So basically just saying be careful with how you use the education data in your survey (as in you should probably not include people who are currently completing the highest possible level of education possible for their age group when looking at the effects of education on smoking).
Just a chart (Assuming normal education patterns in North America and not years skipped or repeated):
12 and 15:
Unusable because they could be in middle school so their highest level of completed education would be elementary school.
16-18:
So people should definitely be in high school (what you put as secondary school) so if someone answers elementary school you can use that data because they stopped pursuing an education.
19-22:
19 year olds can still be in their last year of high school, so again, if they said elementary school you can include them, but "normal" people could still be in high school.
23-28:
Anyone who has only completed elementary or middle school can be used. There are many 5 or more year programs (I'm in co-op so it's 5 years) so people can be 23 and still in undergrad. So if someone says elementary school or middle school, then they are usable data.
29-40:
This age group shouldn't be a problem, most master's are only 2 years or so, so data from this age group should be completely valid.
41+:
Same as above.
So if I were you, I would probably rephrase that question as, if you have stopped pursuing an education, what is the last level of education you completed.
Also, wondering why you picked the specific ranges for age group and age started smoking.
Edit:
You should probably also use years of education instead of elementary middle and secondary, just to cover any cases where schooling systems are different. (I know in Quebec they sometimes have a 13th year before University)
Also consider whether you want to differentiate between a "real" undergrad of 4 years compared to a 2 year degree. xD
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No 19 option for start age. :o
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Thanks for all the responses/criticisms guys.
Yeah I actually edited 19 in a while ago but it did not register. Welcome to TL Pyro699
Yes Koynee I agree with your criticisms, but overall in a large enough sample anomalies won't matter as much. Undergrad degrees are messy too as they can take 3-5 to 5 years to complete, but I'm generalizing all of this in the study to make it easier to collect the data. I dont think the study is proper at all in the first place.
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EPT
