bluefluff's blue fluff

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

On the meaning of questions

I've just been invited to complete a survey designed "to help the University understand how ALs [Associate Lecturers, ie tutors] feel about their role".
I'm at a loss to understand the difference between these three items, which I'm asked to indicate my agreement or disagreement with:



Taking any one of them separately, I struggle to understand exactly what it means. But moving from one to the next, I struggle even more to see the difference between them.

Is there meant to be a difference between "my personal values" & "the things that I value in life"? I suppose I could take a literal interpretation of "things" as "physical objects", in which case maybe the OU would not be expected to share my fondness for pizza with double jalapeno or my collection of Wildhearts CDs. Does the OU value "things" in this sense at all?

I suppose there might be a distinction between "provide a good fit", "match" & "are very similar to" in that they could represent points on a scale running from identity, via passing resemblance, to complementary opposites (in which case the 3-1-2 ordering of statements could be a ploy to check my consistency of response).

Who knows?

For what it's worth, I decided that my attitude to all three was "disagree slightly". If I'd been thinking more clearly, I would have asked awkward questions about the assumption that the OU & I are mutually exclusive categories.

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