Tipping the scales
Steve Burdette
Human Factors Engineering professional focused in medical device manufacturing. I love everything about my job and my field. I am always eager to help people with similar passions find their way into HFE.
In #uxresearch, participants must understand a rating scale. This is one of my frequent criticisms of NPS, but at least people understand that 0-11 are numbers. (The fact that I give NPS any credibility is remarkable).
Here, again a LinkedIn member has authored a research question (survey) without even a basic explanation of the scale. The prompt is vague - what is "considering" here? Thinking about a new job? Looking for a new job? Talking with friends and family about a new job? Most people question their jobs on bad days - sometimes multiple times.
So, is the scale here days, weeks, months, or years? Also, what is "job security" in the context of the question? It is again noteworthy that over 18,000 people have answered this survey question, and that's 18,000 unreliable answers. My typical caveat is that a poll on LinkedIn doesn't generally have great import and thus the consequences of the poor question/answer construction are low. But, I have seen some people write lengthy articles based on poll answers, so this isn't a universal truth.
Again, I offer this not to criticize the writer, but instead to highlight the importance of using a trained researcher to draft research questions—especially when the consequences are high.
You are spot on with this, Steve. The way this survey has been written it's hard to tell whether the author intends to map the threshold-level of employee attrition in relation to lack of or delayed promotion or, if the author simply wants to map the variation across a cross-section of LinkedIn members in regard to how they perceive the trade off between longer stay and vertical movement. To complicate matters further here is a case where an employee stuck with a company for 50 years: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/15/68-year-old-engineer-spent-50-years-at-one-companythe-key-to-his-long-tenure.html How would this gentleman fill this survey?