Programmers motivation: academic research

[Mark Pith]

Dear Ruby community,

We are researching the motivation factors of Open Source software
programmers and would like to ask your cooperation in our large-scale
research. The research is performed for the Amsterdam Business School of
the University of Amsterdam. Your participation would consist of
completing an online survey to which we have linked below. Your
participation is completely anonymous and the research publication will
be freely available, including the results of the survey.

The goal of the research is to better understand the motivations
software programmers have for joining and contributing to an Open Source
project. The insights gained from this research would help the
development of theory for Information Management and could help
practitioners better understand Open Source projects. Next to this, the
publication of this research will increase the exposure of the
development of Open Source software within the academic environment.
Please follow the link to the online survey.

Our test audience has shown that completing the survey will take about
15 minutes. Your time is highly appreciated by us.

http://bit.ly/Survey_Developers_Motivation

Kind regards,
Dr. Thomas Adelaar
Mark Pith

 

[James Edward Gray II]

Dear Ruby community,
=20
We are researching the motivation factors of Open Source software
programmers and would like to ask your cooperation in our large-scale
research.

Please follow the link to the online survey.

I took the survey, but this was my final comment:

This questionnaire is very repetitive. Questions like "Will working on =
this project get me a better job?" or "Does working on this project =
increase my reputation?" are asked many different times in almost the =
exact same way.

It would probably be less of a commitment, and as such more programmers =
would be willing to answer, if you could eliminate the repetition.

James Edward Gray II=

 

[Robert Klemme]

I took the survey, but this was my final comment:

This questionnaire is very repetitive. Questions like "Will working on this project get me a better job?" or "Does working on this project increase my reputation?" are asked many different times in almost the exact same way.

It would probably be less of a commitment, and as such more programmers would be willing to answer, if you could eliminate the repetition.

I haven't looked at the survey but it is common practice to state the
same question differently more than once in order to calculate an
indicator of the consistency of answers. If consistency falls below a
certain threshold the result is discarded because it is assumed that the
person taking the questionnaire either picked random values or did not
fully concentrate on the survey.

Kind regards

robert

 

[Tom Cloyd]

I haven't looked at the survey but it is common practice to state the
same question differently more than once in order to calculate an
indicator of the consistency of answers. If consistency falls below a
certain threshold the result is discarded because it is assumed that
the person taking the questionnaire either picked random values or did
not fully concentrate on the survey.

Kind regards

robert

I want to offer agreement with Robert's comment. As someone with formal
training in psychometrics I can assure you "measure twice (or more), cut
once" is a well validated and approved of practice in psychological and
sociological research, and most especially in research involving subject
response, as opposed to researcher- or instrumentation-evaluation or
measurement. In a word, repetition confers reliability of measurement.
Without that, research of any kind is pointless.

It's unfortunate, of course, that research subjects sometimes protest
about the experience this necessary measurement convention gives them.
The only fix for this is a research instrument that is so clever that
the repetition is not noticed, and that's not easy or cheap to develop.
No easy solutions, here.

I have to hope that folks here will do the survey for the sake of
assisting the researchers, whose intent, we may fairly assume, is to
increase our understanding of this important and most interesting community.

Tom

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tom Cloyd, MS MA, LMHC
Private practice Psychotherapist
Bellingham, Washington, U.S.A: (360) 920-1226
<< (e-mail address removed) >> (email)
<< TomCloyd.com >> (website)
<< sleightmind.wordpress.com >> (mental health issues weblog)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Mark Pith]

I took the survey, but this was my final comment:

This questionnaire is very repetitive. Questions like "Will working on
this project get me a better job?" or "Does working on this project
increase my reputation?" are asked many different times in almost the
exact same way.

It would probably be less of a commitment, and as such more programmers
would be willing to answer, if you could eliminate the repetition.

James Edward Gray II

Thanks James for taking the time to participate in our research. And
thank you Tom and Robert for replying to James' remarks on the survey.

Indeed some of the questions seem repetitive and we do apologize if this
led to any annoyance, however it is needed to have similar questions in
the survey to get reliable results (as Tom and Robert indicated).

Please let me know if you wish to have more information on the survey
design.
(please note that information on the research, including the survey
design, will not be disclosed until the research is completed)

Kind regards,
Mark

 

[Aldric Giacomoni]

Indeed some of the questions seem repetitive and we do apologize if this
led to any annoyance, however it is needed to have similar questions in
the survey to get reliable results (as Tom and Robert indicated).

Remember that you're talking to people who hate repeating themselves...

 

[Marnen Laibow-Koser]

Remember that you're talking to people who hate repeating themselves...

Not only that, but we hate repeating ourselves.

(I haven't taken the survey yet, but I intend to.)

Best,

 

[Josh Cheek]

[Note: parts of this message were removed to make it a legal post.]

Not only that, but we hate repeating ourselves.

(I haven't taken the survey yet, but I intend to.)

Best,

Sure there may be merit to similar questions when quizzing some groups of
people, the thing is, though, that we really hate repeating ourselves.

 

[Mark Pith]

Remember that you're talking to people who hate repeating themselves...

Ah I'm sorry, I didn't know you hated others repeating themselves as
well

I'll repeat myself by saying: thanks for taking the time to have a look
at our survey!