I sent my questionnaire out 27th June 2014 and it is the 10th of October today which means they I have followed what, looking at a previous post, my plan to analyse the questionnaire between the 1st and 15th of October to ensure that I can incorporate into my dissertation in some way. What this type of planning has taught me is that it is good when looking that far into the future to have a plan but that it shouldn't be too restrictive because in June my original plan was to have it done right at the beginning of October but I am glad that I made it flexible because I have been so swamped with UCAS, History Coursework, EPQ and my other subjects. Therefore if I make a long term goal again I will base it around a long term plan but keep it flexible which will help me keep on track and not flustered because if the deadline had been the 1st for this I would be flustered due to the lack of time I have had.
This is just the analysis of what the questionnaire's results tell me, I shall post the evaluation of this questionnaire later.
My questionnaire has been circulating for 136 days and has gathered 29 responses spanning from the 27th June 2014 to the 17th October 2014. It has been 24 days since the last response so I think now is a safe time to do the analysis. With closed questions I shall simply look at the statistics and anything less than 33% response rate (2 thirds of people don't agree) I shall deem as less significant and above 66% highly significant because it will mean that two thirds of people agree. When considering closed questions I shall simply look at the statistical evidence in this way, however when analysing the open questions I will try to look for overall trends in thought and agreement between people.
When analysing it is important to remember that 'greatness' is an incredibly subjective term and that it will mean very different things for people, this is one of the reasons why I sent out this questionnaire - to get peoples' opinions - yet it also means that it can arguably never truly be defined and that this questionnaire may only lead me to one possible definition of it.
Question 1 - What is your definition of 'great'/'greatness' (compulsory)
With this kind of question there are no statistics to analyse, one disadvantage for open questions, however they do provide a lot of depth in concentration and this question in particular can be used to help explain answers to the rest of the questionnaire.
This is just the analysis of what the questionnaire's results tell me, I shall post the evaluation of this questionnaire later.
My questionnaire has been circulating for 136 days and has gathered 29 responses spanning from the 27th June 2014 to the 17th October 2014. It has been 24 days since the last response so I think now is a safe time to do the analysis. With closed questions I shall simply look at the statistics and anything less than 33% response rate (2 thirds of people don't agree) I shall deem as less significant and above 66% highly significant because it will mean that two thirds of people agree. When considering closed questions I shall simply look at the statistical evidence in this way, however when analysing the open questions I will try to look for overall trends in thought and agreement between people.
When analysing it is important to remember that 'greatness' is an incredibly subjective term and that it will mean very different things for people, this is one of the reasons why I sent out this questionnaire - to get peoples' opinions - yet it also means that it can arguably never truly be defined and that this questionnaire may only lead me to one possible definition of it.
Question 1 - What is your definition of 'great'/'greatness' (compulsory)
With this kind of question there are no statistics to analyse, one disadvantage for open questions, however they do provide a lot of depth in concentration and this question in particular can be used to help explain answers to the rest of the questionnaire.
From the above analysis of the responses I have come to the conclusions that the three main things which my sample of EPQ students believe define greatness are: being superior and better than others, being selfless in what they do and putting other's needs before your own and performing significant acts and being skilled at things. Using these responses the overall definition I would craft from it would be this:
"To become 'great' an individual must defy average, they must be extraordinary in some way and be superior to others. In their life time they need to have achieved great things that few others could and contributed something significant to the world. This should all be done selflessly as a great person puts others above themselves and works for the good of the world and those within it, before a person can be considered great they should be considered good."
Question 2 (compulsory)
"To become 'great' an individual must defy average, they must be extraordinary in some way and be superior to others. In their life time they need to have achieved great things that few others could and contributed something significant to the world. This should all be done selflessly as a great person puts others above themselves and works for the good of the world and those within it, before a person can be considered great they should be considered good."
Question 2 (compulsory)
Order of popularity (% of people):
Their achievements (83%); How inspirational they are (76%); Their personality (62%); their deeds (59%); influence and talent (55%); their legacy (52%); other people's perceptions (28%); ancestry and other (3%)
From the answers to this question a person is made great depending on their achievements and how they have had an influence on others, it is about what they accomplish in life and how impacts on others which makes a person great and not their ancestry or how other people perceive them.
Question 3 (compulsory)
Their achievements (83%); How inspirational they are (76%); Their personality (62%); their deeds (59%); influence and talent (55%); their legacy (52%); other people's perceptions (28%); ancestry and other (3%)
- Therefore when writing my dissertation the most significant contributing attribute to Alexander's greatness will come down to what he achieved because it has such a high % of people who believed this (only 5/29 didn't tick this box) - this area will be a greater contributor to greatness than others
- I shall also pay close attention to how inspirational Alexander is to others as that is the next highest % i.e. his affect on Caesar, Pompey and other generals - this area will be a greater contributor to greatness than others
- Ancestry, other people's perceptions and other have % <3% so as according to the boundaries I set out first I shall consider these as minimal contributors to Alexander's greatness
- The others have around half or slightly more people agreeing (52%-62%) and I shall therefore consider them important factors to consider when thinking about Alexander's greatness but not to the same extent as Alexander's achievements and influence
- I shall consider the order of what people believe to be the greatest contributors to greatness as helping me determine the greatest contributors to greatness
From the answers to this question a person is made great depending on their achievements and how they have had an influence on others, it is about what they accomplish in life and how impacts on others which makes a person great and not their ancestry or how other people perceive them.
Question 3 (compulsory)
Order of popularity (% of people):
Bravery (79%); Selflessness (72%); Compassion (66%); Perseverance (62%); Intelligence (45%); Being Merciful (41%); Authoritativeness (21%); Ruthlessness (7%); Being Tyrannical (3%); Other (0%)
From this question it can be determined that morally favourable traits are preferable for someone who is great, and that they shouldn't be overpowering and selfish. They should be as we see goodness today.
Question 4 (compulsory)
Bravery (79%); Selflessness (72%); Compassion (66%); Perseverance (62%); Intelligence (45%); Being Merciful (41%); Authoritativeness (21%); Ruthlessness (7%); Being Tyrannical (3%); Other (0%)
- The most significant character trait to associate with being 'great' is how brave a person is which 79% of people voted for. Obviously this is a very general phrase which could be interpreted many ways i.e. military bravery which is more conventional or the bravery of going against convention. Although defining what the term means is as difficult as defining greatness Alexander's bravery should definitely be considered when assessing whether he deserves his greatness
- The next most important factor is selflessness, a slightly easier term to define than bravery, which suggests that to what extent Alexander was selfless or selfish should be taken into consideration when considering his greatness. This is a particularly interesting argument in my dissertation because Alexander was so contradictory, with this questionnaire I can both support my argument that his selflessness adds to his greatness and that his selfishness detracts from it
- The final trait above the 66% barrier is compassion (66%) this follows the general trend of the responses to this question that the traits which are praised in today's society are those which people consider to make others great - i.e. goodness = greatness in its most simplified form
- The above is supported by the fact that the lowest scoring traits - ruthlessness and tyranny - are considered with definite negative connotation in today's society
From this question it can be determined that morally favourable traits are preferable for someone who is great, and that they shouldn't be overpowering and selfish. They should be as we see goodness today.
Question 4 (compulsory)
Just looking at the statistical results of this question it supports the findings of the previous question as Martin Luther King Jr (79%) was both brave in going against convention and selfless in the way he did it, he was neither tyrannical or ruthless also in his peaceful methods. This suggests, once again, that individuals who are morally 'good' are those who people nowadays consider greater. Caesar and Emily Pankhurst are the next highest scorers, followed by Hitler and Alexander the Great. As these were voted by either 1 or 2 people these can be considered outliers more than anything else, more about the person's opinion than anything else, so I will consider these less significant indicators of greatness than anything else.
Question 5 - Why did you select the historical figure you did for the last question? (non-compulsory)
For this I shall be using my analysis of question one in order to see if my findings there match with the reasons that people gave for their choices by reading them and deciding which one they both fit to, or if they do or not. I also, after looking at what people had written, added another category about their relevance today as some people were suggesting that their opinion was based on their impact on themselves.
Question 5 - Why did you select the historical figure you did for the last question? (non-compulsory)
For this I shall be using my analysis of question one in order to see if my findings there match with the reasons that people gave for their choices by reading them and deciding which one they both fit to, or if they do or not. I also, after looking at what people had written, added another category about their relevance today as some people were suggesting that their opinion was based on their impact on themselves.
From this it can be seen that the similar trends about achievements, selflessness and superiority continue although here it can be seen that when describing why they think that the person they selected is the greatest out of the options that the main criteria used was their achievements and the significance of what they did in their life (blue) then whether or not they did it selflessly. Superiority over others is also present but not to the same degree as it was in question 1 which suggests that when actually applying their definition people tend to think that achievements have more weight - or that their achievements attribute to their significance over others especially as the green highlighter generally underlined points about how the people achieved great things in context of the time that they lived in.
I would therefore adjust my previous definition just a little to make sure that it is obvious that according to the people completing this questionnaire that what an individual accomplished in their life seems, so far, to be what people must use to describe how a person is great suggesting its significance in doing so.
Question 6 (compulsory)
I would therefore adjust my previous definition just a little to make sure that it is obvious that according to the people completing this questionnaire that what an individual accomplished in their life seems, so far, to be what people must use to describe how a person is great suggesting its significance in doing so.
Question 6 (compulsory)
Ignoring those that said they don't know any of them in contrary to the results of question 4 which I shall come back to in the evaluation. This question supports the previous ones as it suggests once again that people who committed things which are against the social morals of today e.g. the atrocities of the holocaust by Hitler, don't - by a large margin - deserve to be called 'great'. Furthermore Stevie Wonder has 17% of votes which, while insignificant, suggests that people who have less impact on world affairs or arguably do less with their life, shouldn't be considered great though this is highly debatable. Interestingly Caesar and Emily Pankhurst are also voted for, once apiece each, in contrary to question 4 so it will be interesting to see how the answers to questions 5 and 6 comply. From looking at this purely statistical it is suggested that people who are remembered for war and poor deeds, morally wrong today, are those that don't deserve to be great.
Question 7 - Why did you select the historical figure you did for the last question? (non-compulsory)
This question looks at greatness from the opposite angle from the last few, looking at what makes a person not great rather than what makes a person great. It is therefore necessary to adjust the categories used slightly so that they relate to the question but can also be linked back to the previous questions' results to help gain an overview of greatness. This mainly involved changing the yellow highlight category to see how malevolence etc. impact on whether or not people see a person as not 'great'.
Question 7 - Why did you select the historical figure you did for the last question? (non-compulsory)
This question looks at greatness from the opposite angle from the last few, looking at what makes a person not great rather than what makes a person great. It is therefore necessary to adjust the categories used slightly so that they relate to the question but can also be linked back to the previous questions' results to help gain an overview of greatness. This mainly involved changing the yellow highlight category to see how malevolence etc. impact on whether or not people see a person as not 'great'.
Looking at the results for this question I can see that how superior or above average an individual is doesn't come into play much, this suggests that according to the people who filled in this question that a person shouldn't necessarily be superior to others if they're least great as gleaned from the lack of relevant material relating to this point. It seems to be more about what these individuals did and achieved in their life time which attributes most to one's consideration of how great a person is coupled with the nature of what they did. Judging by these responses one overwhelming result that can be gleaned from this is that, for these EPQ students who filled in the questionnaire at least, greatness equates very much to the goodness of an individual and that selfish, brutal individuals do not deserve to be remembered as so - for instance this would explain the modal answer of Hitler because he is known for atrocities. The next modal answer of Stevie Wonder for the reasons that they do not know who he is suggests that an individual must have renown to be considered great.
My previous definition therefore has to be embellished to include what the results of this question informed me of, namely that the even if the person achieved significant things in their lifetime they need to be 'good' things that help mankind i.e. not selfish, malevolent etc. for someone to be considered great.
Question 8 - In your opinion why should a person not be considered 'great'? (non-compulsory)
This question leads on from the last one continuing on the line of investigating what it is that would make a person not be great, it is a reflection of question 1 so when combined (along with all of the other information this questionnaire gives me) should help me make an informed assessment of what it is to truly be great - at least as it is considered now by EPQ Sixth Form students.
My previous definition therefore has to be embellished to include what the results of this question informed me of, namely that the even if the person achieved significant things in their lifetime they need to be 'good' things that help mankind i.e. not selfish, malevolent etc. for someone to be considered great.
Question 8 - In your opinion why should a person not be considered 'great'? (non-compulsory)
This question leads on from the last one continuing on the line of investigating what it is that would make a person not be great, it is a reflection of question 1 so when combined (along with all of the other information this questionnaire gives me) should help me make an informed assessment of what it is to truly be great - at least as it is considered now by EPQ Sixth Form students.
As you can see the prevalent trends within these answers is related to their nature of a person and how this manifested itself in the individual's achievements, actions and contribution to the world. In conjunction with the previous questions the most evident idea is, once again, that if a person did 'bad' things such as murder or similar atrocities that they shouldn't be considered great. It appears that for most of these people who answered great has positive connotations and shouldn't be attributed to "bad" people.
This therefore finalises the definition of 'greatness' which can be deduced from the responses to this questionnaire, that greatness is an attribute that should be given to the selfless, benevolent people who achieve good things which help lots of people and change the world for the better not those who are cruel or oppressive.
My next step is to evaluate the questionnaire and responses, so assess the validity and reliability etc. of it to see if what can be drawn from this analysis of it can be of use in my EPQ (see next blog post) and then after this finalise the definition of greatness which is suggested by the responses to this questionnaire.
This therefore finalises the definition of 'greatness' which can be deduced from the responses to this questionnaire, that greatness is an attribute that should be given to the selfless, benevolent people who achieve good things which help lots of people and change the world for the better not those who are cruel or oppressive.
My next step is to evaluate the questionnaire and responses, so assess the validity and reliability etc. of it to see if what can be drawn from this analysis of it can be of use in my EPQ (see next blog post) and then after this finalise the definition of greatness which is suggested by the responses to this questionnaire.