Help with research

[Jack Diederich]

On Thu, Feb 17, 2005 at 07:09:44PM -0500, Jeremy Bowers wrote:
> On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 15:51:47 -0800, elena wrote:
> > I can go to my friends, however it occurred to me that it might be
> > better to post in a newsgroup and get a larger, more diverse, and
> > random sample. 
> 
> Larger, yes, more diverse, yes, more random, probably not in the
> statistical/scientific sense. Caveat emptor.

Bigtime, I see you have a occupation box for "Software Developer" and
"Other."  The data for software people (and lawyers) may be noisy becuase
they take the questions literally.  Because the answers are True/False
folks might parse them narrowly for their truth value (and all in an 
effort to help!).  for instance,

"I find that it is possible to be too organized when performing certain  
 kinds of tasks."

False, I don't find this is possible because I'm not organized.  

This reminds me of a story, for Psychology 101 all freshman had to
participate in three experiments by grad students.  One I did involved
riding on an excercise bike for ten minutes wearing a heart monitor.
After that you could leave as soon as you felt your heartrate was back
to normal.  The study concluded that people are bad at knowing when
their heart rate is elevated.  I concluded that undergrads will only
do the minimum to pass a course, and are willing to lie about their
heartrate if it gets them out the door five minutes sooner.

Be careful with data!

-Jack