I'm just a newbie looking for insight

[Mauranda]

Hello ,

My name is Mauranda I am an assistant construction manager in training, I am following this forum so that I can learn a few bits and bobs from you guys about life on site.

I would really appreciate it if you could fill out this questionnaire on improving labour productivity on construction sites as I need the data for my dissertation and would love the opinion of site operatives.

Should only take a few minutes and its a great chance for you to have your views heard and included

Please see the link:
Questionnaire to identify the five most important factors that affect labour productivity - https://lboro.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/questionnaire-to-identify-the-five-most-important-factors-3 (Closes at 5:15pm today)

 

[The Ghost]

I had a look but it is badly worded and makes references to unknown factors i.e. the first question; Who or what is Lim? Also I find the questions are somewhat leading in a political sense so I closed the browser.

 

[Mauranda]

I had a look but it is badly worded and makes references to unknown factors i.e. the first question; Who or what is Lim? Also I find the questions are somewhat leading in a political sense so I closed the browser.

Heya, I had the questionnaire read by a supervisor multiple times, I guess its just one of those things, we all try our best.
Thanks for giving it a go anyways

 

[Mauranda]

Heya, I had the questionnaire read by a supervisor multiple times, I guess its just one of those things, we all try our best.
Thanks for giving it a go anyways

my*

 

[Mauranda]

Also, this is a quote taken from Lim ("") According to Lim (1996) Labour productivity in the context of Construction is defined by the “amount of output or work a labour input does on site”

 

[The Ghost]

So still I ask who or what is Lim? Trying is for failures they say. Also the phrasing "Please rate how severely..." this is bad English plainly put, your supervisor should be doing a better job spotting the use of poor wording in questions.

 

[Bobster]

Why such a short time allocated to the questionnaire being live?

Do you think you will collect enough data in 8 hours for you dissertation?

 

[pirate]

This excerpt for example:
Please rate how severely you believe these Labour factors have affected labour productivity on your own sites.

Required

Major affect Moderate affect Minor affect No Affect I do not know
Lack of skill of labourers
Fatigue
Abseentism

Factors do affect, ie they have an effect, therefore the choices should be Major effect, Moderate effect Minor effect etc

and Abseentism is not a word, Absenteeism is, however...maybe your superviser should have gone to Specsavers!
Seriously, for surveys to be taken seriously, you seriously have to ensure that they are correctly phrased and are error free.
Hope this helps...

 

[Mauranda]

Why such a short time allocated to the questionnaire being live?

Do you think you will collect enough data in 8 hours for you dissertation?

Hello the web questionnaire was actually live for a week however I have been live on other sites

 

[Mauranda]

This excerpt for example:
Please rate how severely you believe these Labour factors have affected labour productivity on your own sites.

Required

Major affect Moderate affect Minor affect No Affect I do not know
Lack of skill of labourers
Fatigue
Abseentism

Factors do affect, ie they have an effect, therefore the choices should be Major effect, Moderate effect Minor effect etc

and Abseentism is not a word, Absenteeism is, however...maybe your superviser should have gone to Specsavers!
Seriously, for surveys to be taken seriously, you seriously have to ensure that they are correctly phrased and are error free.
Hope this helps...

Thank you for the message, I would love a response to survey if you had the time

 

[Mauranda]

Thank you soo much for the feedback guys I will use this to supplement my critical appraisal but I can't actually edit the questionnaire as it has been live for some time.

I would really love a response to the questionnaire, I am currently looking for your opinions on site productivity .

 

[Mauranda]

So still I ask who or what is Lim? Trying is for failures they say. Also the phrasing "Please rate how severely..." this is bad English plainly put, your supervisor should be doing a better job spotting the use of poor wording in questions.

Lim wrote a piece on Labour productivity in 2006,it was a fantastic study based on work sites in Malaysia which I am looking at essentially reciprocating for U.K sites.
We are all humans, we try our best !
I would love a response to the questionnaire, although you do believe it is badly written I would love to hear your own views about site productivity, I am just a student trying grab some real insight from site operatives

 

[The Ghost]

Well sorry to say your best is not good enough at least to evince a response from me. The drop down menus are an unnecessay chore whereas you could have made them tick boxes instead. If you want me to use my time for your benefit you must make it as accessible and coherent as possible. I am dissappointed that degree level students have such a paucity of mastery of the English language and basic understanding of human psychology. The attempted excuse "we are all human-we try our best" is not going to cut much ice when people start dying because we "tried our best" but the electrical installation was ultimately dangerous. It is just NOT an option in our trade.

 

[Nobbin]

I'm not going anywhere near this after reading fellow forum members comments. If it was my survey I would take it down and start again.
From what I see here Mauranda, you really need the insight of those people who are NOT going to tolerate a badly presented survey. If you are happy to accept the views of people who neither care or even notice the errors and poor presentation then I would suggest that your efforts are for naught, because it would be inaccurate and non-representative of the cross section you are looking for. In any case I wish you well and hope you get the result you are looking for.

 

[westward10]

Give the girl a break if you don't wish to take part in the survey leave it at that.

 

[Adam W]

I've looked at the survey and a had a go at completing it.
I found it was expecting too much of me, but at the same time duplicating questions in a seemingly nonsensical way - for example you ask how productivity is affected by the proportion of work subcontracted, then about the proportion of works subcontracted, then you give a line to explain the answers given to 15 questions including thinking up another option and explaining what that is (required).

I would suggest you break the survey down into several more specific surveys, for instance one on the effects of working in bad weather, and make the questions more specific, maybe giving an example of the kind of site you have in mind, not just 'all of them you've ever worked on'. 30 seconds to a couple of minutes is a reasonable time to expect someone to give up to help with your dissertation, any longer than that and you might find people won't bother.

Better still you could go to a construction site and offer to push a broom around for a few days, then you'd be able to gather your information first hand.

 

[Rpa07]

Welcome to the forum by the way!

 

[pirate]

I don't mean to be harsh, but I have to agree that the average degree student's mastery of English is very poor compared with what would have been required in years gone by. I'm not talking University Challenge here, just saying that many of the students who get degrees nowadays would not have made it into University previously, far less graduated. It is a fault of the system, it's that simple...I've nothing against breaking the elitist system of university only for those and such as those, privileged people etc. however I do not have to tolerate what I perceive to be poor usage of the English language...it DOES matter, in my opinion...and I am old, so can say what I like about this!

 

[pirate]

and, for the record, my standards have slippe quite a bit, hence the use of ellipsis above.

 

[pirate]

*slipped*
Damn!
Never said my typing was any good...