What Do-It-Yourself Researcher is using Google Consumer Surveys to write his or her thesis? That’s our best guess as to who is behind a series of hard-to-understand questions that have to do with gratification and risk tolerance. Remembering that respondents would see only one of these questions, and not all 5 of them, do you find the questions answerable? Or obtuse?

It took us a while, but we eventually understood the questions above, and think we understand what the questions are trying to measure.

That’s unlike the Questions 1, 2 and 3 below (left column), which we have stared at and still do not understand how to answer. Questions 1, 2 and 3 are each subtly different, as the DIY researcher struggled to try to make them comprehensible, our guess, but we’re not sure that any of the 3 can be grasped without a lot more words than Google Consumer Surveys permits.

At least questions 4, 5 and 6 above (right column) are understandable and answerable.

Do you think the following questions are part of the same dissertation presentation? Or are they from some other study on caution vs risk?

Do-It-Yourself research is risky business.

• Would you save a few dollars and write your own research questions knowing there is a 50% chance you will get back meaningless results?
• Or, would you hire a professional researcher, spend a few dollars more, knowing there is a 100% chance you will get back meaningful results?

Let us know what you decide.