How Beneficial are Recreational Scuba Divers to the underwater environment? my EPQ pr

[cate:)]

Hello, I am doing my A Levels and doing the Extended Project Qualification on "How Beneficial are Recreational Scuba Divers to the underwater environment?" I am a Rescue diver and wish to turn diving into a career. I have a questionnaire and need as many responses as possible to analyse how beneficial we are as divers for the project. If you could complete one it would greatly benefit my evaluation. please email me if you have any questions or want to voice your opinion! chayward@woodbridge.suffolk.sch.uk Also if you are involved in any conservation projects I would be very interested to find out more information. Thank you for your help and time, it is greatly appreciated! Link to the questionnaire online - http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MN7KSXX
Cate

 

[g1138]

I feel like this questionnaire might not apply to quite a few users on the board, myself included. Not all of us were PADI trained or intend to take a PADI class. Also there's a large number of users who live in the US. Might be a factor in your questionnaire results.

If you ever make another, I'll gladly fill it out.

Goodluck on your project.

Edit:
I forgot my manners. Welcome to the Scubaboard!

 

[DevonDiver]

Cate,

Welcome to Scubaboard!

Have you considered hosting your survey via an online site? You might get more responses that way, than asking for volunteers to download, complete and then upload a pdf file.

Here's some resources: A Few Good Online Survey Tools | Idealware

Survey Monkey offer a free basic survey set-up: SurveyMonkey: Free online survey software & questionnaire tool

 

[fjpatrum]

First, as DevonDiver suggested, I suspect you'll get more participation if you host this online somewhere. Second, might I make a few suggestions? (I'm going to assume you answered yes and go ahead and provide them...)

1) Your title implies you think divers (particularly rec divers) ARE beneficial to the underwater environment. It might be less biased to state it as "what impact do recreational divers have to the underwater environment" or something similar.
2) As g1138 indicated, there are literally millions of divers worldwide that have zero affiliation with PADI. Consider opening this up a bit and ask a more generic "have you taken qualifications in buoyancy outside of your initial training" or something similar. I'm not familiar with the other projects you list as being PADI affiliations or not but I suspect they're not strictly PADI things. Opening this up to all the other agencies and similar conservation projects by adding an "other-please list" category to question 1 might be good.
3) I'm curious what the air type has to do with conservation. Are you asking this just to help determine bottom times? If so, I'd think asking what a diver's average dive count and bottom time per dive is would be a more effective and realistic determination.
4) Consider opening your question 4 to "do you dive locally or travel more?" This opens it up to everyone other than just UK folks, unless you're looking for UK specific data. Also, add "other-please specify type and time" to your travel methods question. Some people use bikes, motorcycles, trains, etc.
5) Consider swapping question 7 with 8. I didn't know what citizen science was to answer question 7 until I read question 8.
6) Combine questions 9 and 10 as they are really the same question.

 

[cate:)]

Thank you, i have made a few changes.
My title is "how beneficial" so i can also discuss the negatives. my original title was "to what extent are divers damaing the envrionment" which was very negative, with my new title i can talk about the pros and cons. my project supervisor suggested my new title but thanks for your advice. as to the air type - nitrox has a higher percentage of oxgyen therefore adds to oxidisation of wrecks (rusting of the thistlegorm) which is damaging to the environment.

i have a link the qustionnaire on surveymonkey -
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MN7KSXX


thank you for your advice for the questions but i really just want to see whether people belive that divers damage or benefit the environment - this can be added to my evaulation of the project.