On these types of scales, it is typical that there is always a “mean choice”. For example: very dissatisfied, dissatisfied, neutral, very satisfied. Neutrality is the middle choice here. Some people don’t have a strong opinion. As you can see in the picture, the Municipality of Amsterdam chooses the following options: Unsatisfied, Satisfied and Very Satisfied. There is no middle choice and two of the three choice choices are positive. In my opinion, this is an obvious case of directing search results, but it gets a lot more fun.

In this way, people who are visually present are also misled. If you look at the icons used in the survey, you will see a very clear choice between dissatisfied, neutral and satisfied. The first symbol association is correct, but the second and third symbol association is wrong. The straight-mouthed second symbol would normally be seen as a neutral casting choice, but is now given a positive vibe. People who are visually inclined and want to vote neutral are directed towards an affirmative answer. The third symbol is also wrong, as this type of smiley is associated in studies with “satisfied, not quite satisfied.” Not a disaster, but the fact that the steering is done with the middle selection option is unacceptable.

Here under the smileys used in the search. Google image search learns that there are only three types of this type of design symbol. So it is not possible for a separate sentiment to be mistakenly chosen because it has been linked online and adopted. For example, there was also an orange variant and the wrong variant was loaded by mistake. The chosen sentiments were chosen to be associated with these symbols deliberately.

Because of the design of this study, the results of the study are incorrect. Validity in research means that you measure what you want to measure. Since the text below the symbols and the symbols themselves do not match, the validity is called into question. Are we actually measuring what we want to measure or are we measuring what we would like to see as the outcome? The solution would be to improve this in the next survey, but this leads to the next problem: survey reliability. Reliability in search means that no matter how many times you test something, the search results will be the same. If the design of choice choices is changed mid-study, the results of the study are no longer reliable. So the search is already invalid, and if the validity is restored, it is no longer trusted.

Overall, this is far below par and search result oriented “search”, which is totally unacceptable. The results of the research are taken into account when making the decision whether to make the cut final, making the need for good research so important. Because this research design fails miserably and the data is unusable.

As can be seen in the screenshot, as a resident of Amsterdam Centre, I am not satisfied with the experience (I vote dissatisfied). This, of course, gives a motive for complaining about the experience, but as I never got involved in discussions about it, I can only say something. Apparently, decisions in Amsterdam are made on the basis of less quality research than the one I did in the eighth group. Only there it was about less important subjects than city design.

Hence my email to you. I think this is a topic to ask the Municipality of Amsterdam about. Who have to prepare these lousy studies? Can we trust the results? (Spoiler: no). Will the results be included after the research design has been shown to be poor? What does that mean for the experiment? Are all Amsterdam municipal investigations conducted in this way? Is there a budget to open a vacancy for scientific researchers so that this kind of embarrassing show doesn’t happen? You get my point.”

[NAW bij redactie bekend]
(@Annabel You can wear it too Cousin Greg Kevin Krueger Questions)