Great to see you! As mentioned in my last post, I will share my research crafting process with you today.
The goal of my research is to have a sense of the beliefs of climate deniers. How prevalent is denialism in youths of Singapore and how do their views affect their lifestyles? With such a topic, I would be using a qualitative research method as the topic it is subjective. I selected my target audience as youths, particularly those in NUS as they are a convenient target population frame. This population frame is more accessible to me (as an NUS undergraduate myself). Additionally, with Covid-19 going on it would be hard, if not impossible to get people from different walks of life to participate in my research. I opted to perform a Google survey as my research method, as it would help me reach a greater number of NUS students all while remaining safe at home.
Next, with a research question and my target sample frame in mind. I had to come up with survey questions that revolved around my topic and would satisfy our curiosity. I made the survey anonymous, as I thought in this way people would more readily share their views.
For my questions, I designed it in a way that it would adapt to the survey taker. I split the survey into 8 different sections. The first two sections were generic questions such as their year of study and which faculty and major they are in. The next section titled Personal Beliefs is where the survey split depending on their response. The first question was very direct, I asked if they believed or doubted the existence of climate change. As pictured, I tried my best to keep my question neutral and not be a leading question. As compared to asking “Do you believe in climate change?”, a yes-no question that implies climate change is a reality (which it is). Those that answered that they doubted climate change were led to the “How is your personal relationship to the environment?” section.
While the “Climate Change Impacts” and “Views about the Climate” sections asked questions regarding how severe a threat they viewed climate change is and how they come to have this belief. With these questions, I hope to gather data on the extent of their climate knowledge.
The “How is your personal relationship to the environment?” section surveyed respondents’ behaviour. Whether they frequently recycle and their main mode of transport. I followed this section with one in which I asked them to complete a carbon footprint calculator. In my opinion, this is the most exciting part of the survey. With the responses, we would be able to see if their proclaimed lifestyles and beliefs are reflected in their carbon footprint. Here is the link, try it and consider leaving a comment down below. Personally, my carbon footprint is as pictured above.
Join me next week as I share with you my data and my takeaways from this experience. See you 😊.
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Hey Li Zhe!
My carbon footprint is 2166kg/ yr yooo but that’s likely just cos I haven’t gone overseas in a while and now I don’t travel around SG as much.
I’m curious as to whether you think there was sufficient reach in who could respond? If you sent it to friends/ people you know, do you think that would mean they have similar mindset and views/ are less likely to be deniers?
– Anna
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Sufficient reach hmmmmm, its a good question. In an ideal world I would be able to equally and randomly survey NUS undergraduates yet I think I have gotten a pretty good spread of respondents already, as we shall see in the next post!!! I think with all primary research there is a balance and choices to be made. As for your second question, I personally do not think I select my friends based on their mindsets and views, of course I am biased. I chose to have friends be the channels to spread my survey as I thought this would result in a better response rate. I may consider having a post after this survey to reflect on my processes and possible areas of improvement. Thanks for visiting Anna 🙂
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Hi Li Zhe!
Thanks for giving us insight into your research process! I really like the systematic and adaptive approach you adopted when asking questions. Perhaps one other question you can investigate/ could have included in your survey would be asking Believers why they think Deniers don’t believe in Climate Change. This might reveal a gap in understanding if the the presumed rationale from Believers does not coincide with the actual reason of Deniers, and hence show that the methods Believers take to educate Deniers may be inappropriate and misaligned, thus ineffective. Just a thought!
On a separate note, not sure if this falls within the scope of your blog, but I recently came across the term “Climate Doomers” on social media (1), which is defined as people who believe in climate change but feel that humanity has already passed the tipping point and there is therefore nothing to do. It might be interesting to explore how that even in believers, a sense of jadedness can also lead to apathy and non-action! Really look forward to the results of your survey 🙂
Cheers,
Kelly
References
(1) https://www.instagram.com/p/CFdRyXSBfNZ/
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Hi Kelly! Its great having you here, I agree we should attempt to understand how the believers view the deniers as well. I think that the gap between this two groups of people has widened due to social media. With each group seemingly being in their own echo chambers, with their online presence and interaction becoming more of a closed circle with only others that share similar views to them. Social media thus may in this case serve to divide rather than unite, it is rather ironic. Additional as we commonly see in Instagram comment sections, when each group meet the opposing group it rapidly devolves into labelling and perhaps this may cause people to harden their stance or opinions. Which I think in the end is counterproductive.
Climate doomers is a rather new term to me as well, certainly all of us that try our best to keep up with the rapidly evolving environmental scene are constantly bombarded with bad news. It is certainly a phenomenon I will certainly try and look into in the future!! Thank you. Additionally, Dr Coleman recently shared this paper (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006320719309024) with us regarding hope and conservation. I don’t mind having a discussion about it. 😊