I will probably not be implementing any suggestion that requests a multi-checkbox style question... [examples] The reason is that I haven't been able to figure out how to computer process these effectively; I end out with rows of boxes like "hiking,fishing" or "fishing,boating,climbing" and it's apparently beyond my limited skills to get SPSS to separate these out into separate chunks of information....[examples] Or, teach me a good way to solve this problem using Google Forms and SPSS.
I assume you can put the spreadsheet in excel, yes? Excel is much more powerful than Google docs, and I don't know SPSS.
If so, what you need is to add columns for each option, and put in the relevant version of the line below:
=IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH("hiking",A1)),"hikes"," ")
This will search the text in box A1 (assume column A is the one with answers like "hiking, swimming, sailing" or whatever), and if it contains the text "hiking" will write "hikes", and if not will write nothing (or "doesn't hike")
If I didn't explain well enough, let me know!
ETA: And if you don't mind just having "TRUE" and "FALSE" as your output (instead of "hikes" and " ") then you can also just use
=ISNUMBER(SEARCH("hiking",A1))
Thank you. I'm going to try this, and I might ask you for more help if I can't get it to work on my own.
The first draft of the 2012 Less Wrong Census/Survey is complete (see 2011 here). I will link it below if you promise not to try to take the survey because it's not done yet and this is just an example!
2012 Less Wrong Census/Survey Draft
I want three things from you.
First, please critique this draft. Tell me if any questions are unclear, misleading, offensive, confusing, or stupid. Tell me if the survey is so unbearably long that you would never possibly take it. Tell me if anything needs to be rephrased.
Second, I am willing to include any question you want in the Super Extra Bonus Questions section, as long as it is not offensive, super-long-and-involved, or really dumb. Please post any questions you want there. Please be specific - not "Ask something about abortion" but give the exact question you want me to ask as well as all answer choices.
Try not to add more than five or so questions per person, unless you're sure yours are really interesting. Please also don't add any questions that aren't very easily sort-able by a computer program like SPSS unless you can commit to sorting the answers yourself.
Third, please suggest a decent, quick, and at least somewhat accurate Internet IQ test I can stick in a new section, Unreasonably Long Bonus Questions.
I will probably post the survey to Main and officially open it for responses sometime early next week.