Is ScubaBoard representative of the diving population at large?

[Dr. Lecter]

Done.

 

[Diving Dubai]

Done.

i question I'd love the answer too is how do people perceive their regularity in carrying out an activity

is weekly, monthly, or yearly considered regular in scuba diving?

i remember a survey in the UK about people visiting the theatre to see shows, strangely the results showed that people considered themselves a regular theatre goer if the went once a year!

it would be interesting to see how different people considered themselves vs the actual outings they undertook

 

[Storker]

On the attached link I've captured six questions from one of the studies I saw at DEMA that should give a quick peek at whether there's a directional/high-level match from a demographic and psychographic standpoint.

A few comments to the poll:

You're asking about 'race', but not about nationality/world region. This seems kind of weird unless the poll is very much intended - either deliberately or accidentally - towards a North American/US audience.

Also, when asking for household income (a question I personally always decline to answer), the numbers don't have much meaning unless normalized against the median or average income in the person's country. 100k USD/year gives a much higher disposable income in, say, Poland, than in NYC.

 

[lowviz]

... You're asking about 'race', but not about nationality/world region. This seems kind of weird ...//...

I didn't complete the survey, there was something that left me with an 'odd' feeling. That's it. Nicely done.

Geographic 'dive locales' most definitely have their own culture that is quite independent of race. Kudos.

 

[Storker]

I didn't complete the survey, there was something that left me with an 'odd' feeling. That's it. Nicely done.

Thanks.

Myself, I'm a bit wary about 'racial' distinctions. IMO, differences between groups of people are not caused by 'race', but rather by cultural, subcultural or social ('class') differences. From a sociological POV, it's interesting: I have the distinct impression that the USA may be the developed country where you find the strongest correlation between 'racial' and social/subcultural differences. So with that correlation, 'race' may be a simple and convenient indicator, but in other cultures? Not so much.

 

[RJP]

I'm not clear on how the activities portion helps you learn much. If i read it correctly, I was to answer affirmatively if id ever done something more than once. For example, hiking. Sure I've been hiking at least twice. but for some reason that escapes me, it's not my favorite thing to do. There were other items on the list, for example, snow skiing, which was my passion until my mid-thirties but I haven't been in many years and won't be going again.

Please advise. Thanks.

Good question.

Per above - I plucked the questions from a large survey done by someone else in the industry. I grabbed a few to see if SB answers sort of line up with the other survey. I didn't want to change the question to keep apples/apples comparison.

---------- Post added December 8th, 2014 at 08:44 AM ----------

I'm not very smart regarding such a project as this but I must wonder: If there is eventually a survey/poll to determine whether SB members are representative of divers in general, where would it be posted? Obviously not on SB, as you'd need to get divers who are not on SB to do the survey as well, no? I'm sure I missed something here. Or maybe a survey would be posted elsewhere and mentioned on SB so SB people could also take part for the comparison?

I am trying to figure that one out... but the recruit could be a nightmare. It's easy enough to recruit from SB by posting here. The hard part is to recruit non-SB divers in a way that ensures that they are also non-SB divers.

But at some point... do we want/need to leave the SB divers IN the "total dive population" pool? Does leaving SB divers OUT actually provide a non-representative sample of diving overall?

 

[RJP]

Thanks.

Myself, I'm a bit wary about 'racial' distinctions. IMO, differences between groups of people are not caused by 'race', but rather by cultural, subcultural or social ('class') differences. From a sociological POV, it's interesting: I have the distinct impression that the USA may be the developed country where you find the strongest correlation between 'racial' and social/subcultural differences. So with that correlation, 'race' may be a simple and convenient indicator, but in other cultures? Not so much.

Typically, the demographics questions in surveys are there to ensure that the people who answered the poll are reflective of the total population. Not so much to compare differences between different demographic groups. For instance, the population of the world is roughly 50/50 male/female. However this first chart - that I pulled from another study of 24,000 divers - shows the overall breakout of divers by gender is roughly 2/3 male, 1/3 female.



Here's the breakout of the respondents to the survey link in this thread (as of 8am 12/8) showing that respondents are 9:1 male.



So we'll know that any thing we might find in surveying SB members would not only reflect a "SB bias" but also a "male bias" relative to divers in general. Even the other. larger survey will not only include the underlying "diver bias" (that's who's in the study) but will also skew "male bias" as well.

It's just useful to know what bias, if any might be baked into your results.

 

[sheeper]

I do think SB is representative. Thru SB I have met a number of divers both here in So Fla and elsewhere. I have had divers look me up for a guided dive on their trips here. I've met hard-core tech/cave divers, experienced divers, new divers, divers returning to the sport, and every other kind of diver you can think about. a wide range of ages and single divers to families of divers to dive clubs.
I think SB has a very broad and diverse slice of the dive world. And it would be VERY interesting to see some demographic analysis of SB.
And I think a couple of us could create a meaningful survey for SB'ers.
NetDoc, you hearing this?

 

[RJP]

I do think SB is representative. I do think SB is representative. Thru SB I have met a number of divers both here in So Fla and elsewhere. I have had divers look me up for a guided dive on their trips here. I've met hard-core tech/cave divers, experienced divers, new divers, divers returning to the sport, and every other kind of diver you can think about. a wide range of ages and single divers to families of divers to dive clubs.
I think SB has a very broad and diverse slice of the dive world. And it would be VERY interesting to see some demographic analysis of SB.

There's a difference between "broadly inclusive" and "representative." For example, SB obviously includes cave divers, tech divers, and recreational divers... so it is "broadly inclusive" in that respect. However, I'm sure we'd all agree that the SB audience contains a higher proportion of cave and tech divers than the proportion of cave and tech divers in the population at large. Because of that - on the whole - the SB membership is not "representative" of overall diver population... even though it is "broadly inclusive."

Other SB skews seen in previous surveys:

SB over-indexes for Instructors vs total diver population:



SB divers also skew high in terms of dive experience:

 

[uncfnp]

Here's the breakout of the respondents to the survey link in this thread (as of 8am 12/8) showing that respondents are 9:1 male.

View attachment 198879

So we'll know that any thing we might find in surveying SB members would not only reflect a "SB bias" but also a "male bias" relative to divers in general. Even the other. larger survey will not only include the underlying "diver bias" (that's who's in the study) but will also skew "male bias" as well.

Seriously! Never noticed