Definitely true on both counts. I suspect that many answers are signalling intentions, but social desirability certainly has a role to play, as we mentioned above. This is one of the reasons we are now placing less emphasis on the future collection of quantitative survey data.
In the future SHIC is going to be placing more weight on our impact on the understanding and trajectory changes of the smaller number of students who progress from the primary workshops (of the kind we described in this report) onto our advanced workshops and individual coaching. Because we’ll be working more closely with these students and discussing concrete actions (e.g. education and career decisions, pursuing volunteering opportunities with effective charities, and attending EA meetups and conferences), we hope to have a much more reliable insight into whether we’re actually producing valuable changes in their understanding and plans.
Definitely true on both counts. I suspect that many answers are signalling intentions, but social desirability certainly has a role to play, as we mentioned above. This is one of the reasons we are now placing less emphasis on the future collection of quantitative survey data.
What do you see as a better way of gathering data going forward?
In the future SHIC is going to be placing more weight on our impact on the understanding and trajectory changes of the smaller number of students who progress from the primary workshops (of the kind we described in this report) onto our advanced workshops and individual coaching. Because we’ll be working more closely with these students and discussing concrete actions (e.g. education and career decisions, pursuing volunteering opportunities with effective charities, and attending EA meetups and conferences), we hope to have a much more reliable insight into whether we’re actually producing valuable changes in their understanding and plans.