Sally Lerner wrote, >Tom - I'd certainly be interested in doing the sort by e-mail and think it >would be very interesting to have a large number of FWer do it as well. >Sally This is what I was hoping for! I suggest we do the actual sorts off the list for two reasons: 1. to avoid flooding the list with communications that only need to be two-way; and 2. to offer people confidentiality in responding. (Of course, individuals are free to also send comments to the list on any or all of the statements.) What I will do is forward a complete list of numbered statements to the futurework list. The numbers have been assigned randomly and are strictly for data coding and entry purposes. I'll outline the procedure here and copy it to the _bottom_ of the message with the numbered statements. The procedure is to sort the statements into 11 piles ranging from most disagree (-5) to most agree (+5). Don't be too concerned about the numerical values. They're strictly ordinal and don't really mean there has to be a full 'unit' of difference between a "+4 agree" and a "+5 agree". The final ranking and number of statements for each rank will be the following: |-5 | -4 | -3 | -2 | -1 | 0 | +1 | +2 | +3 | +4 | +5 | |(4)| (4)| (5)| (5)| (6)|(6)|(6) | (5)| (5)| (4)| (4)| People may complete the sort using either the do-it-yourself method or the step-by-step guided method. THE DO-IT-YOURSELF METHOD The sorting process is easier if you take it in small steps: first read through the 54 statements, then divide them in three groups of ROUGHLY equal size: "agree", "disagree" and "neutral" (or undecided). Next from the, say, 16 to 20 statements in the agree group select the FOUR that you agree with most strongly. Assign these four statements the rank of +5. Then go to the disagree group and select the four statements that you disagree with most strongly. Assign these the rank of -5. Alternate back and forth between the two piles until you've assigned a rank to all the statements in them, then finish by assigning the remaining "neutral" statements to the remaining ranks in the middle, -1, 0 and +1. THE STEP-BY-STEP GUIDED METHOD I would be happy to guide anyone through the sorting process step by step. 1. Reply to my message containing the 54 statements. Make sure that the reply message's To: line is addressed directly to me [EMAIL PROTECTED] 2. Mark 16-20 statements with which you most agree by placing a Y in front of the statement and mark 16-20 statements with which you most disagree by placing a N in front of the statement. 3. Send me the marked-up list. I'll send you back a message with instructions for the next step. Regards, Tom Walker ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ knoW Ware Communications Vancouver, B.C., CANADA [EMAIL PROTECTED] (604) 688-8296 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The TimeWork Web: HTTP://WWW.VCN.BC.CA/TIMEWORK/
