Questionnaire Results, My Take

Natalia already posted an overview of the questionnaire results; this is merely another take on the same data. I basically just tried to find common ideas in the answers we received, and count their respective occurences. For the numbers, note that there were 8 answers in total.


1. What is your scientific discipline?

We got a number of replies from the economics department, probably due to the composition of the course itself (5x). We also got two replies from Cognitive Science, and one of Biology and Social Anthropology each.

2. How long have you been working in science?

Typical answers ranged in 1 to 1,5 years of PhD studies, with three reports of longer engagements (4, 14, and 20 years).

3. What does scientific progress mean to you? What is your personal contribution to the progress of science?

Answers to this question have generally been the longest ones. The general ideas were (summarized):

About scientific progress in general:
- discovering new things in general/creating new knowledge (4x)
- practical contribution; making life more easy (2x)
- creating new knowledge, discipline-specific (1x)
- gain a broad overview/perspective/understanding of something (1x)
- combining existing theories/concepts to form new insights (1x)
- paradigmatic shifts (1x)
- finding new ways to solve problems (1x)
- theoretical contributions (1x)
- ethics/not destroying human values (1x)

About the personal component:
- Want to: advance knowledge (for practical purposes) (1x)
- Participate in experiments (1x)
- specific research topic (1x)
- nothing yet (1x)
- interdisciplinarity (1x)
- new perspectives; reframing established patterns (1x)
- reformulating existing knowledge (1x)
- publishing new insights (1x)

Have you ever created radically new scientific knowledge? If so, could you describe a moment when it happened?

Judging by the high number of "not yet" answers, it would seem that most current students feel that they did not really create any such really new knowledge yet.

Have you ever...?
- not yet (5x)
- i developed something new (2x)
- I confirmed a theory (1x)
- advancements on existing things (1x)

If so, how...?
- after in-depth interviews and focus group (1x)

Would you say of yourself that you have a scientific paradigm? If so, have you ever consciously questioned it?

Would you say...?
- no (3x)
- yes (3x)
- not a "hard" one (1x)
- I think so, but don't know (1x)
- NO ANSWER (1x)

If so, have you ever questioned it?
- yes, and changed it (1x)
- yes, I questioned ways of "doing things" (1x)
- no, too early for that (1x)

What is your motivation to work in science?

- discovery, learning new things (2x)
- understand things better (2x)
- enjoy being creative, "puzzle" (1x)
- goal: get into research (1x)
- find cures, help people (1x)
- get a good job (1x)
- avoid boredom, find opportunities (1x)
- interested in topic (1x)
- important role in society (1x)