Dissertation survey: Social housing of horses

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Abi_CU

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Hi everyone! I'm currently in third year at University, and I was hoping you could help me out with my dissertation on assessing attitudes towards the social housing of horses. I am looking for people over the age of 18 who own or loan horses to spare a few minutes to fill out my questionnaire. Please don’t hesitate to contact me for more information, and do share this with your friends. Thank you, your help is greatly appreciated!

https://chester.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/questionnaire-assessing-attitudes-towards-social-housing-o
 
You really need a glossary of terms at the start to explain what you means. "Social housing" means something very different to most people and I am still not 100% clear what you mean by it.
 
Completed but might be worth changing risk or injury to risk or illness or injury to account for management of lamanitics etc.
 
we do surveys for work all the time and specialise in getting data off people. a couple of the starter questions will give you wonky data. the questions are skewed towards people who do diy livery, so as an owner who keeps horses at home, for example, question 9 is making me give you a bad answer, even though if i was a livery the reputation of a place would be really important. you need to sort out your categories of horse management ( full livery, diy, at home, grass livery) and give them appropriate questions to get the info you need. Grass livery peoples answers will be completely different to full livery people, and both are equally valid.

The factors for the night stabling question seem odd as well. if its overnight why would the mucking out time matter? What classes as overnight as well. I had assumed it was when you leave your horse completely until the next day, but the mucking out option makes me wonder what you mean? I'm not 100% sure what social housing is as well? maybe define that.

It can be really tricky getting the phrasing and structures of questions right, but i think you will get better data if you relook again your questions. you seem to be working off an assumption that people are automatically diy.
 
I started the questionnaire but stopped when I realised that the questions were directed towards livery yard customers. I keep my horses at home, so make my decisions about their housing according to their needs, rather than mine. My criteria were not mentioned in the table.

In addition, I was uncomfortable with the request for a postcode, for many purposes the first half would be sufficient, whilst fetasining anonymity.
 
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Glad it wasn't just me thinking that social housing was low cost housing for humans. Echo the comments about those of us who keep our horses at home. The facilities that I have were designed by me, for me, so they are exactly what I want for their benefit and mine.
 
I was another who was struggling with the idea of reputation deciding where I kept my horse as my stables are at home outside my back door. Not sure the previous occupants of our house had a good reputation as a livery yard, as it was all rather scruffy! As for if there was space, the question was not designed for people keeping horses at home.

Did my best though.

Also I did like the idea of the local council providing reasonable, affordable housing for horses.
 
Not sure what you'll get out of that survey. Assumption of survey is that horses are kept at livery. The questions seem a bit repeated in different ways too. I'm lucky in that my horses are kept at home so like case895 I can do as I think best for them, but the majority of horses are kept in liveries and irrespective of a horseowner's level of knowledge about "social housing", most livery yard owners in UK do not do social housing to the ultimate benefits because it would be too heavy on land-use during the winter, because horses turned out together can injure themselves or any human walking in to take one of them away to ride, and most single-cell solo turnout paddocks at livery yards do not feature field shelters or stables, and most livery yard owners have a policy of in-at-night-through-winter to save land.
 
I think the issue is that a lot of people KNOW how they would ideally like to keep horses, but the reality is they are limited to whats available around them and compromise as best they can.
 
Another who gave up as I keep mine at home and run a small livery yard so most answers are impossible or irrelevant, no idea what the aim is when you are only targeting those who keep horses at livery and missing a huge number of horses kept at home.
 
If you redid the survey with a description of exactly what you mean by social housing (is it a loose barn, how many horses, is there access to fields etc) you'd get better data back. It's too vague. Some people might like a loose barn idea for three horses, but not for 10 horses. You need to define exactly what is meant by social housing. How are they fed as well? Is it ten horses with ad lib hay, or ten horses fed twice a day. There's a massive difference.

you have a great question in question 16
If there was evidence supporting the benefit of social housing against single housing for horses would you want to change your horse’s housing situation? If you selected 'Yes, but I cannot do this for other reasons' then please state here why.

You will get all your answers for this without making people fill out all the questions before. It won't give you a simple percentage breakdown of the points you had listed, but they aren't relevant to a large portion of your audience anyway, so just leave it open ended and sort out the data by fishing through it instead of giving people limited options.
 
maisie06 said:
I've done it, but I didn't realise local authorities were giving out housing to horses!!!
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Sorry just clicked on your link and see no glossary or explanations of terms - social housing is not a term I have ever heard about with regards to horses, I assume that you refer to socialising with a herd or other horses however - you really need to leave no margin for error or misinterpretation when conducting research. I find some questions entirely irrelevant to my mind - income??? Are we looking into horse behaviour in relation to socialisation or human social status and attitude in relation to keeping and socialisation of horses. I got part way through the questionnaire and quit. I say this not to insult or offend, but my specialty (whilst I don't practice anymore) is research... These are points you will have to address completely in order that you don't lose valuable marks - if you can qualify why you ask the questions you do, then my biggest critique would be as Case has mentioned the terminology and explanation of it - for a start the wording has no relevance or recognition in the equestrian world - and these are the people you expect to answer the questionnaire
 
For me ,social housing refers to something akin to what I have seen in Switzerland.Horses have a stable with a small yard area at the back where they can socialise with their neighbours (edited to add,over a wall)yet have the option to retreat into the privacy of their stable. A great system to my mind.
 
Done. Assume by social housing you mean horses together - if so, last question I would have added that the reason I wouldn't want this for my horse is that he is usually at bottom of pecking order and I would want him to get his fair share of hay.

As others, still not sure what you meant!
 
Have started the survey won't finish as it does not allow those who live at and own their own stables to answer in a sensible way.
 
Sounds as though you need to re-jig the survey OP. You're missing out on all the owners that keep their horses at home and have the opportunity to keep their horses in a more natural way.....those at livery have very little choice as they are constrained by what's available.
There seem to be a fair number of objections to the personal questions....people do not like to be classified by social class or pinned down by their location..I usually lie through my teeth and I know a lot of others do as well. So far from gathering any useful information ....all you will get is a load of bunk, or people will refuse to complete.
 
I did the same as my horses are kept at home, also the one I have the longest is 28 and retired so doesn't need arenas etc.
Pearlsacarolsinger said:
I started the questionnaire but stopped when I realised that the questions were directed towards livery yard customers. I keep my horses at home, so make my decisions about their housing according to their needs, rather than mine. My criteria were not mentioned in the table.

In addition, I was uncomfortable with the request for a postcode, for many purposes the first half would be sufficient, whilst fetasining anonymity.
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Oh dear! Intrusive questions (why ask earnings with no option for 'prefer not to say' ; poor questions; unclear purpose.

I have been writing questionnaires for years for clinical studies and you HAVE to consider each question carefully in terms of does it make sense in itself (suppose my choice of where horse is during the day or night depends on weather or if farrier coming or I decide to ride - just listing does not answer you question), how it will be perceived, what it adds to the aims of the survey.

Sorry to be so critical but as it stands, any conclusions you come to will not be valid
 
I know what social housing meant (all horses living together in a big barn), however, I keep mine at home so it was difficult to answer some questions. Don't understand why postcode and income was required, very personal.
 
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