Return

Subud Vision - Feedback

Sahlan Diver - A Proposal for an International Subud survey

Implementing a Process to Produce a Survey. From Valentine Narvey, October 10, 2007. Time 19:5

I support your proposal. Since you have become "a highly paid consultant advising employed people on how to do their job properly" do you have some results-oriented ideas on how we might go about implementing a process aimed at producing a viable survey? If not, how might we find someone who does? I am impatient - I don't want to wait another 50 years to get some answers, because these questions are fascinating, and could be of great benefit.

From Sahlan Diver, October 10, 2007. Time 20:48

Valentine,

Thanks for the feedback. After discussions with the other editors while I was writing the article, I came to the conclusion that four phases would be involved in developing and carrying out a successful survey:

1) Decide on the material of the survey

2) Set up a team of experts to ensure that the survey would be conducted comprehensively, and designed so as to not unconciously bias the results

3) Publicise the survey and set up mechanisms for as wide a participation as possible -- if a survey were to be done internationally this would involve a large expense on language translation, so private or official funding would be needed. The cheaper, easier alternative is to conduct the survey on a country by country basis, especially in countries with a large membership such as Subud Britain.

4) Publish the results

The first phase is the one I am most concerned about -- the topics to be covered and the questions to be asked by the survey. To be any use these must be wide ranging; we must get a full picture of the state of Subud, warts and all. If the questions asked are too tame this would be an opportunity lost.

To this end I proposed the "Design a Subud Survey" experiment, asking members to suggest topics and/or questions they would like to see included. I felt that if many contributed to this, the more likely it was that we could gather material that truly met all our concerns. Unfortunately we have had no feedback on that page of the Subud Vision web site yet. Possibly people are still busy working through reading the articles, as we find the hit counter for the article pages is still going up by the day.

We would welcome any suggestions for survey questions. The page is reached from the "Projects" menu. Click the third option down: "Design a Subud Survey". On the page there is a large button that says "Click here to add comments to this page" which anyone can use to instantly add suggested topics or questions to the page. The ideas don't have to be finely polished - this is a brainstorming kind of experiment designed to get an initial rough outline.

If a large number of suggestions could be collected here, it should provide an impetus for proceeding to the second stage. Should this experiment fail, then an alternative way to start the project would be for one person, or a group of interested people, to design a comprehensive survey mockup, which is then published with the intention of inviting feedback and criticism. Members may find it easier to comment once they have seen a concrete proposal, rather than contribute to what is at the moment very much a blank canvas.

If you have alternative ideas yourself for how such a project could be carried out, please suggest them on this feedback page -- I am no survey expert, just a Subud member who feels the need for accurate information about the true state of Subud and the aspirations and attitudes of its membership.

Sahlan

From Valentine Narvey, October 23, 2007. Time 5:5

Hi Sahlan, here is my "quick & dirty" effort to write a set of survey questions. I think that someone has to make a start and then let people kick it around until we end up with something workable. I've incorporated your multiple choice question, but I think that we should provide people with open-ended questions to allow for the unforeseen. So, here is my suggested rough draft:

Editors' Note: Valentine's suggested survey questions have been transferred to the survey project page. Please click on the link and take a look.

Add Feedback to this page / Communicate with us

Use the form below to


Very sorry but feedback forms now permanently closed on the Subud Vision site

Return