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Discussion Groups / English Usage / March 2009Wording of questions
Dear those who are "American", I am considering a questionnaire to ask to 1500 American people. The questionnaire is about "partial retirement" which means that an employee works part time before he or she fully retires. I will here a question with two versions. I will paste the versions in separate messages so that you can comment on them separately. I would like you to consider the general understandability of the questions. Please read the questions as if you were a respondent and tell me anything that makes the question confusing. It should be that the questions should make sense at a first glance. Note however that there is an instructions page before these questions which explain what is partial retirement etc. So please keep in mind that the respondents will be familiar with the term "partial retirement" by the time they get these questions. I would very much appreciate your concern. An employee can work part time for several years in partial retirement, before she retires fully. During that time she may prefer to do the same type of work she did before or switch to a different type of work. Below we describe two retirement options. The options differ in the following respect: • Type of work in partial retirement Sarah works 40 hours a week and earns $3000 a month. From age 65 she plans to work 24 hours a week in partial retirement. She will continue to build retirement benefits for full retirement. Sarah can choose between two retirement options: Option 1 She can partially retire and continue to do the same type of work she did before (with or without switching to another employer). Option 2 She can partially retire and do a different type of work than she did before (with or without switching to another employer). Based on your own preferences, which of the two options do you find more attractive? Option 1 Option 2 >An employee can work part time for several years in partial retirement, >before she retires fully. During that time she may prefer to do the same [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] >She can partially retire and do a different type of work than she did before >(with or without switching to another employer). If she takes either Option, but switches to a different employer, how can she continue to build retirement benefits? She can continue to contribute to her retirement plan, but "build" sounds like her employer is partially contributing.  SignatureTony Cooper - Orlando, Florida > If she takes either Option, but switches to a different employer, how > can she continue to build retirement benefits? She can continue to > contribute to her retirement plan, but "build" sounds like her > employer is partially contributing. What is the problem if the employer is partially contributing? Actually this is exactly what I would like it to happen. But lets set this apart for the moment; it is important for me to know: Why did you wonder about this? Because my aim was that the respondent does not pay attention to "employer change". Was I not successful in doing this? Did the question make you think about employer change? Because it should not. The question is about "work type" change; regardless of employer change. >> If she takes either Option, but switches to a different employer, how >> can she continue to build retirement benefits? She can continue to [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >What is the problem if the employer is partially contributing? >Actually this is exactly what I would like it to happen. It's not a problem, but I can't imagine an employer continuing to contribute the retirement plan of an employee who now works for some other company ("different employer"). Not only can I not imagine it, I don't think it would ever happen. Ever. >But lets set this apart for the moment; it is important for me to know: >Why did you wonder about this? Because my aim was that the respondent does >not pay attention to "employer change". I don't understand. Why would you want a question with something in it that the respondent should not pay attention to? If something in it doesn't make sense, what kind of responses would you expect? >Was I not successful in doing this? Did the question make you think about >employer change? Of course it did. Your Options contained "(with or without switching to another employer)". >Because it should not. Then why did you include this possibility? >The question is about "work type" change; regardless of employer change. I get the feeling you are too close to this. You know what you mean, but you are no longer able to see what other people read in your questions. You know what the question is about, but your written questions are about something else. SignatureTony Cooper - Orlando, Florida >>> If she takes either Option, but switches to a different employer, how >>> can she continue to build retirement benefits? She can continue to [quoted text clipped - 26 lines] > > Then why did you include this possibility? You are on the point. I try to figure out if, when someone would like to work part time, the person would continue to do the same types of work or change to different types of work. Now, I was thinking that the respondent might wonder if doing different types of work would mean changing the employer. Then I thought I should mention that employer change plays no role in evaluating the options. Therefore in both options I mention "with or without switching employer". I have the feeling that I could not do what I wanted to do. but also I cannot think of what I can do to achieve what I want to do. Would you maybe have a proposal for fixing it? >>The question is about "work type" change; regardless of employer change. > > I get the feeling you are too close to this. You know what you mean, > but you are no longer able to see what other people read in your > questions. You know what the question is about, but your written > questions are about something else. You got my problem: I am too close to it. I spend days to find the write wording. I think I changed it 10 times already. But this is difficult for me. I simply cannot guess how the respondents will understand me. I don't know how to speak to them properly. I don't know how they would understand my question. I am not a native speaker. This is the reason why I am bugging people here with my questionnaire. I depend on the comments here to make it nice. Some help will be highly appreciated. P.S: Tony you always comment on my questions, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you. >>>> If she takes either Option, but switches to a different employer, how >>>> can she continue to build retirement benefits? She can continue to [quoted text clipped - 59 lines] >P.S: Tony you always comment on my questions, I would like to take this >opportunity to thank you. I would leave out the reference to building retirement benefits and use: "Sarah works 40 hours a week and earns $3000 a month. From age 65 she plans to work 24 hours a week in partial retirement." for two reasons: 1) It allows you include the possibility that she can change employers. 2) Continuing to work part-time for the same employer does not necessarily mean that her retirement benefits will increase. She may not be entitled to a retirement benefit contribution from the employer if she is a part-time employee. If her retirement benefit increases based on her years of service with the company, the company may exclude service on a part-time basis. She may be able to contribute to her retirement fund whether she works for the same company or a different company, but "build" implies that the company is contributing. If she does contribute on her own, that seems to me to be irrelative to the choice of Options. Leave out what confuses. Don't try to include all contingencies in writing a question. SignatureTony Cooper - Orlando, Florida > Leave out what confuses. Don't try to include all contingencies in > writing a question. And what about the part: "with or without switching employers" >> Leave out what confuses. Don't try to include all contingencies in >> writing a question. > >And what about the part: "with or without switching employers" No problem with that. I prefer the following wording, though: Option 1 She can partially retire and continue to do the same type of work she did before for the same employer or for a different employer. Option 2 She can partially retire and do a different type of work than she did before for the same employer or for a different employer. SignatureTony Cooper - Orlando, Florida > On Tue, 31 Mar 2009 01:37:38 +0200, "minimus" > No problem with that. I prefer the following wording, though: > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > She can partially retire and do a different type of work than she did > before for the same employer or for a different employer. Thank you Tony, I changed it as you suggested. An employee can work part time for several years in partial retirement, before she retires fully. During that time she can continue to do the same type of work she did before. She may prefer to stay with her former employer or switch to a different employer. The latter choice will have consequences for the work income and retirement income. Below we describe two retirement options. The options differ in the following respects: • Employer in partial retirement • Work income in partial retirement • Retirement income in full retirement Sarah works 40 hours a week and earns $3000 a month. From age 65 she plans to work 24 hours a week in partial retirement. She will continue to build retirement benefits for full retirement. Sarah can choose between two retirement options: Option 1 She can partially retire with her former employer and continue to do the same type of work she did before. Option 2 She can partially retire with a different employer but continue to do the same type of work she did before. Her tasks will then be less demanding but her work income and retirement income, when fully retired, will be lower than in Option 1. Based on your own preferences, which of the two options do you find more attractive? Option 1 Option 2 |
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