Hi everybody, this study aims to explore helmet use of rock climbers in the format of a questionnaire. It will cover use, motivations and other elements that may contribute to helmet safety in the climbing community. Takes roughly 10 minutes to complete.
If you only boulder, still take part, as there are also hypothetical questions.
Note: you must be a climber to take part.
Link below and send it to anyone you know who climbs.
Thank you.
I've filled in your questionnaire.
Where you ask us to rank injuries, the question first asks to rank in order of likelihood and then in brackets asks for the most important first. I suggest you decide which you want and remove the ambiguity.
You list "outdoor lead" and "trad" as different styles of climbing, but no "sport" - is sport climbing what you mean by "outdoor lead"? You do realise that both sport climbing and trad climbing are done outdoors right? And that both can involve either leading or top-roping (or seconding, which is not quite the same thing)?
You ask participants to rank risks in order of likelihood - but not everything in the list is the same category of thing. For example you include "banging your head on the wall", "falling objects" and "cuts/bruises to head & face", "concussion" - they don't belong on a list together, either of the first two could be causes of either of the second two which are effects. It doesn't really make sense to try to rank them in order like that.
Also, before coming to that question you asked me to select various styles of climbing - but that question doesn't specify which style it refers to. I answered with "trad" in mind, but my answer would have been entirely different if I'd been thinking of "indoor bouldering" for example. I listed both "trad" and "indoor bouldering" as forms of climbing I participate in, and other than this post you have no way of knowing which activity the later answer relates to.
That said, it's far from the worst thought out survey I've seen on here and much less annoying than many of them. Best of luck.
I agree with El greyo, I found the question ambiguous.
Also it seemed to limit the number of items I could correctly put in the list to 4, because after that it began putting them in the wrong location
> "Hi everybody, this study aims to explore helmet use of rock climbers in the format of a questionnaire. It will cover use, motivations and other elements that may contribute to helmet safety in the climbing community. Takes roughly 10 minutes to complete..."
From the link attached:-
".... The questionnaire will take approximately 15 minutes to complete."
10 minutes... 15 minutes... all the same, innit?
Academic rigger 'n all that.
Perhaps we have a future politician in the making.
Mick
Done, took 6 minutes
Any chance you could publish the results here too?
kind of misses the point somehow as one of the most important times to wear a helmet is surely when belaying (as I can attest having been hit by a fist sized rock last weekend!)
A survey about helmet use and risk by a Dr Gamble???
Anyway, survey completed and much better than most on here.
To be honest I lost interest after several pages of preamble asking me to tick a load of consents, make up a password etc. Never got as far as the survey. I understand you need to include safeguards but if you want people to participate then make it as simple as possible for them.
I only get an error message about being unable to connect to server...
Thank you for completing the study and for your feedback. We'll look at getting this changed to remove the ambiguity.
Thank you,
Max
Hi there, thank you for taking part in the study and giving us some detailed feedback. We'll discuss those points and see what changes we can make at this stage. Unfortunately, there is no sort of 'official' list of climbing styles, so we tried our best to make them as clear as possible to the avergae climber, but I completely appreciate what you're saying in that regard.
Thanks,
Max
Thank you for taking part. There's a good chance the resulting paper, if there is one, is a year or so away. But we will try to post it here if the thread is still live.
Max
Hi, thank you for taking part as well and for your response. Absoultely agree that it is important, if not more important to wear a helmet as the belayer. However, as this is a preliminary study in to the topic we decided to focus on the climber. We hope to explore this and the wider topic more in subsequent papers, including the actions solely of the belayer.
Cheers,
Max
Hi there, thank you for trying the link and sorry that it returned an error. Would you mind replyng with the operating system, device and web browser your using?
Cheers,
Max
Done, good luck with your research
Was there some preamble missing there? A "please help with my study" that was accidentally deleted?
Done. Some interesting questions...
Started and am now worried about the currant state of education.
> Done, took 6 minutes
> Any chance you could publish the results here too?
I think it should be the expectation that any researcher who requests the completion of a survey on here should also publish the results on here. Just common courtesy really. I've seen very few if any do so.
Martin
Completed.
Most of the surveys we are asked to complete on here are from undergraduates or masters students. They are seldom of good quality, but I gladly complete them recognising that I am assisting in the author's undergraduate or masters studies and hopefully helping them to do more serious and valuable research work in future.
This seems to be different. It seems to be serious research undertaken by an academic who already has a PhD. So I think we can expect a higher standard.
In particular I think we should expect that the researcher either is an experienced climber, or has trialled the survey with experienced climbers before publishing it. I'm afraid this doesn't seem to be the case. as other have pointed out. The categories of climbing don't make sense. Yes, it makes some sense to differentiate between lead and top-rope (but seconding would be a better term in trad climbing) but to add "trad" and "aid" as separate categories, but not "sport", is very odd and does suggest a lack of knowledge of modern climbing.
As others have pointed out the list of "injuries" is quite strange. Falling objects is obvious, but that should surely be contrasted with "falling from height" or similar as the cause of injury, not with "cuts, bruises, concussion etc which are the injuries themselves. We not being asked to compare like with like.
I almost gave up when asked "what other safety precautions do you take". I answered "the lot!", but then did enumerate some, eg rope(!), belay device, nuts, cams etc. But what is the point of this question.?
The questions on risk taking were interesting, though I stumbled over "canoe down a white water rapid". I used to do that a lot, so it is "like me" except that I probably wouldn't do it now so it's "unlike me", except that I'm almost certainly more likely to do it now compared to the average person of my age which is what the rubric a the top suggested as the basis for my answers. Perhaps I'm nit-picking here.
So overall a better questionnaire than we are often asked to complete on here, but I'm struggling to see it as of post-doctorate quality. Am I missing something here?
Martin
I assumed it was second named person without a doctorate, probably an undergraduate or master's student, who was carrying out the study under the supervision of their qualified tutor.
> Started and am now worried about the currant state of education.
Presumably you'd be in favour of raisin standards?
> Presumably you'd be in favour of raisin standards?
Beet me to it. Anyway that's a vine idea
In the event of a pendulum, it could be considered a dangerous sultana of swing (gets coat, shuffles off...).
> Presumably you'd be in favour of raisin standards?
At least someone noticed my quip for what it was. Come on, admit it. Who was on there high whores ?
That’s a classic too.
That's gnrp for you.
Filled in your study but did so understanding it to be a "helmet safety study" on completion it seems I have been participating in a study on "sensation seeking" - in my view this title implies a fundamental misunderstanding of the motivations of most climbers.
i havent done it but he preamble says it's in 2 parts, their helmet questions and a 'sensation seeking scale' questionnaire, which are faily standard and it's likely they will be looking at correlations between the two aspects.
Done
Congratulations sir on being the first survey I've clicked on on UKC that gave an accurate estimation of duration to complete!
Do please post again when you have the results.
Hi there, thank you very much for doing the questionnaire and for giving your feedback. To hopefully clarify, I am an undergraduate student and am essentially the lead on this project, with supervision from Dr Gamble. I am working on this project alongside doing my dissertation in my final year.
One of the difficulties with this study is that there is very little past research for the sport of climbing that is similar to what we are trying to achieve, so we have created questions we feel could be helpful in getting an understanding of helmet use in the climbing community. Some, such as the 'other safety equipment' one, was intended to serve as a point of correlation against helmet use... do some people use plenty of safety extras but not a helmet?... that sort of possibilty. Unfortunately, some of these haven't hit the mark and will likely be rendered useless, but I hope that gives some context as to why not all questions may seem linked or fully relevant.
Again, thank you for taking part.
Max
Hi everyone,
Just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has so far given the questionnaire a go and to those that have given their feedback. As I mentioned in a previous reply, a subsequent paper will be a while away, but I will do my best to get it posted on here for you all to read.
Max
Thank you Max for that explanation. And apologies for getting the wrong end of the stick. Compared to other undergraduate surveys we have been asked to complete on here yours is one of the better constructed and more interesting to complete. And I hope you will have gained something from people's comments.
Martin
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