Which, if I read you right, Ross, is you're saying the results were
overly optimistic in terms of % of women on c4l list. I, too, thought it
sounded higher than I would have expected. I looked to see if the
subscriber list is available, but couldn't find it. That would have its
own problems, of course, but could be a way to get a second opinion on
the numbers.
However, I think if we can get over the need to quantify we can probably
agree that quality-wise, more participation from women is a good thing.
More participation from women would be more representative of the field
of librarianship and also of the general population. I saw a report
recently that said that more than 60% of library users (and I think this
was US public libraries) are women, which is higher than the general
population. And unless we believe that there are no differences between
men and women, that would lead one to conclude that it's important for
library services to be both male and female friendly. Which to me means
that we need to have men and women working together to design all
aspects of the library's public face.
kc
p.s. Like Bohyun, I found the number of respondents that do NOT consider
themselves part of the community to be intriguing.
On 12/5/12 11:31 AM, Ross Singer wrote:
Right, what I'm saying is that this survey is subject to "response bias"
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Response_bias - "It also occurs in situations of voluntary
response, such as phone-in polls, where the people who care enough to call are not necessarily a
statistically representative sample of the actual population"), which doesn't render it
irrelevant, it just can't, by itself, be declared representative of the non-participating
community's demographics.
My point here isn't that it's not representative, it's that we can't know
because the subject matter of the survey (which is about gender inequality,
esp. among females) inherently produces statistical bias.
-Ross.
On Dec 5, 2012, at 2:23 PM, Jonathan Rochkind <rochk...@jhu.edu> wrote:
Hmm, it's quite possible you know more about statistics than me, but...
Usually equations for calculating confidence level are based on the assumption
of a random sample, not a volunteering self-selected sample.
If you have a self-selected sample, then the equations for "how likely is this to be
a fluke" are only accurate if your self-selected sample is representative; and there
aren't really any equations that can tell you how likely your self-selected sample is to
be representative, it depends on the circumstances (which is why for the statistical
equations to be completely valid, you need a random sample).
Is my understanding.
On 12/5/2012 2:18 PM, Rosalyn Metz wrote:
Ross,
I totally get what you're saying, I thought of all of that too, but
according to everything I was reading through, the likelihood that the
survey's results are a fluke is extremely low. Its actually the reason I
put information in the write up about the sample size (378), population
size (2,250), response rate (16.8%), confidence level (95%), and confidence
interval (+/- 4.6%).
Rosalyn
On Wed, Dec 5, 2012 at 1:52 PM, Ross Singer <rossfsin...@gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks, Rosalyn for setting this up and compiling the results!
While it doesn't change my default position, "yes we need more diversity
among Code4lib presenters!", I'm not sure, statistically speaking, that you
can draw the conclusions you have based on the sample size, especially
given the survey's topic (note, I am not saying that women aren't
underrepresented in the Code4lib program).
If 83% of the mailing didn't respond, we simply know nothing about their
demographics. They could be 95% male, they could be 99% female, we have no
idea. I think it is safe to say that the breakdown of the 16% is probably
biased towards females simply given the subject matter and the dialogue
that surrounded it. We simply cannot project that the mailing list is
57/42 from this, I don't think.
What is interesting, however, is that the number roughly corresponds to
the number of seats in the conference. I think it would be interesting to
see how this compares to the gender breakdown at the conference.
This doesn't diminish how awesome it is that you put this together,
though. Thanks, again to you and Karen!
-Ross.
On Dec 5, 2012, at 1:28 PM, Rosalyn Metz <rosalynm...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Friends,
I put together the data and a summary for the gender survey. Now that
conference and hotel registration has subsided, it's a perfect time for
you
to kick back and read through.
[Code4Lib] Gender Survey
Data<
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqfFxMd8RTVhdFVQSWlPaFJ2UTh1Nmo0akNhZlVDTlE
Gender Survey Data is the raw data for the survey. Not very interesting,
but you can use it to view my Pivot Tables and charts.
[Code4Lib] Gender Survey
Summary<
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Hbofh63-5F9MWEk8y8C83heOkNodttASWF5juqGLQ1E/edit
Gender Survey Summary is easy to read version of the above -- its the
summary I wrote about the results. Included is a brief intro, charts
(from
above), and a summary of the results.
Let the discussion begin,
Rosalyn
P.S. Much thanks to Karen Coyle for reviewing the summary for me before I
sent it out. Also if there are any typos or grammar mistakes, please
blame
my friend Abigail who behaved as my editor.
--
Karen Coyle
kco...@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net
ph: 1-510-540-7596
m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet
