Another Survey

I hate thesis survey season.

 I get SO many requests to participate in surveys that it is unusual to have no requests in my inbox during any particular day. I know that this is the way that students get through their education (I was one of those students, once upon a time), but I find that most of the topics are pretty inane. I am very particular about which survey requests I answer. For example, I NEVER complete a survey posted on Facebook. That just seems lazy to me. If you want my opinion, then send me an email. Make at least a little bit of effort thinking about your desired respondents, okay?

Anyway, I got yet another request for yet another survey that seemed to be something that I wanted to know about, so I completed it. Two surveys in two days. That's REALLY unusual for me.

 This survey was about AMTA membership. I answered all the questions, but still don't feel that what I answered will make any real changes to how our organization is run. How could it? AMTA is not involved in approving or using the results of these surveys - at least, the information was not indicated as something that would be shared with the leadership of AMTA outside of possible publication in a journal three to five years from now. So, it seems to be a bit of a waste of time.

Any time I get a survey request, I look at it very carefully. I am looking for more than just information collection - I want to know what will happen once this information is collected, collated, and completed. How will the survey results be disseminated to all of us? Will those answers be collected? I know that the results of all the surveys I did over my years in graduate education are sitting, unseen and unreported, in my files. There is some interesting information there, but no one but me will ever see it. (There are a couple of reasons for this, but this is not the time for discussing it.)

 Anyway, I hope that the person who is collecting all these answers about why folks are members of AMTA will actually be able to do something with the information that actually makes a difference to me and to all of you, but I am not holding my breath.

 Time to check my inbox for the next survey request...

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