Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rutgers!sri-spam!sri-unix!hplabs!tektronix!decvax!mcnc!rti-sel!dg_rtp!throopw From: throopw@dg_rtp.UUCP (Wayne Throop) Newsgroups: sci.research Subject: Re: MALE SEXUALITY RESEARCH Message-ID: <692@dg_rtp.UUCP> Date: Mon, 10-Nov-86 13:50:46 EST Article-I.D.: dg_rtp.692 Posted: Mon Nov 10 13:50:46 1986 Date-Received: Wed, 12-Nov-86 02:25:28 EST References: <620@dg_rtp.UUCP> <526@cci632.UUCP> <656@dg_rtp.UUCP> <595@cci632.UUCP> <668@dg_rtp.UUCP> <826@ur-tut.UUCP> Lines: 95 Summary: in a survey like this, less ambiguity is better than more > jgro@ur-tut.UUCP (Jeremy Grodberg) >> throopw@dg_rtp.UUCP (Wayne Throop) > I think the key problem with your argument is the implication that such > questions can be put unambiguously. I don't think I made such an implication. I only MEANT to imply that the questions could be put LESS ambiguously, and that this would, on the whole, be a Good Thing. > The question (".. lays down the law...") > posed would reveal a deeper attitude about how women want to be treated than > simply whether or not they want to be beaten. So many people tell me. I have yet to see it convincingly demonstrated. > While different people would > interpret the question differently, their choice of interpretation is part of > the test. Again, I do not find the evidence of this compelling. (In fact, I don't even FIND the evidence of this.) > The answer will reveal simply if the person feels women want to be > controlled by a man. OK. Now we have a paraphrase of what YOU think "lay down the law" means in this context. It certainly does NOT tell us what J. Random Respondent thought it meant, and therefore it does not tell us what J meant by J's degree of agreement. > Unfortunately, any way of phrasing the question will be > interpreted differently by different people. Fine. Wonderful. Agreed. Would YOU agree that it would be better if the question were phrased so that MORE people think it means the SAME thing? Would you agree that, to the extent that various people think the statement means different things, simple degree of agreement with the statement cannot be used to deduce what these people think? > The best you can > do on a questionaire is to channel the ambiguity in a known direction with > meaningful results. I agree. This is precisely what I think was NOT done. >>I contend that the use of context-dependant phrases like "lay down the >>law", "men only want one thing", and so on in a context-impoverished >>survey is equivalent to loading the questions with nonsense words like >>"blatzmimp". Blatzmimp could be sex, companionship, money, shoes, >>children, cold feet, panty hose, or abusive domination. > > I find it hard to belive that "lay down the law" is as ambiguous as blatzmimp. What, I'm not allowed to exagerate to make my point? But OK, fine. "Lay down the law" is not as ambiguous as blatzmimp. Nevertheless, I, personally, COULD NOT TELL what the phrase "lay down the law" meant in the context of this survey, and so had NO IDEA WHATSOEVER whether I agreed with the statement or not. But that's OK, the instructions said that if you didn't know if you agreed, you could leave any response blank. Fine. I found that I had to leave about two-thirds of the survey blank, or risk being misleading. In speculating what the people who DID respond might take the various phrases I couldn't understand to mean, I came to the conclusion that the survey very likely might not measure what it seemed to purport to measure, and I haven't seen anything so far to make me change my conclusion. I really don't see myself as being unreasonable here. - I found I didn't understand very much of the survey. - I suspected that others (who THOUGHT they understood it) might be mistaken, in that the meanings of the terms I found ambiguous might not be widely shared in the respondent population. - I don't see persuasive evidence that the questions that seemed meaningless to me individually nevertheless form a coherent, unambiguous whole when taken together. - I am firmly convinced that, in so far as the respondents think that the statements in the survey mean different things, the results are meaningless. That is, the more disagreement among the respondents as to the meanings of the statements, the more meaningless the results of the survey. To sumarize: Proper interpretation of the survey depends on how the respondents interpret idiomatic English. This factor is largely uncontrolled for by the testing procedure and by the test itself. I haven't seen much to convince me otherwise. -- I know you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant. -- Wayne Throop !mcnc!rti-sel!dg_rtp!throopw