Survey
Motivation
Back in the brainstorming period, when the idea of termites terminator first come out, one of our teammate asked a question: what is termites? It is apparent that there are some people who totally have no idea of termites. Even though some people know termites, they haven't been afflicted by termites. On one hand termites are causing destruction but on the other hand, not all people have realized that. This promotes us to conduct a survey on the people's cognition of termites and the situation of the termites' damage in residential area.
Method and context
We design a questionnaire for our survey. Paper edition is released in Hangzhou Science and technology museum, Shanghai Science and technology museum, schools and residential areas. Besides, an online version (in Chinese) is accessible from the link here. We dispersed this link among our friends, classmates, parents and other relatives.
Fig 1. Survey questionaire
General results
(1) Phase 1 - Science And Technology Museum
In science and technology museum, most surveyed samples are young children. Some parents are also involved. Both the young and the old show an incomprehension of termites. It urge us to advertise the knowledge and harm of termites to the citizens.
(2) Phase 2 - Schools
School students are usually easier to accept new concepts and ideas. Thus these group of people have a better understanding of our project idea.
The result shows more concerns about environmental protection and effectiveness of our project. We have to focus on these points which the public pay more attention. The result remind us which aspects should we improve and do a better job.
(3) Phase 3 – Residential Areas
We conduct our survey in the residential areas, part of which have been afflicted by termites. According to our interview and survey result, we learn about that termites usually appear in summer. The damage mainly happens in the first and second floor.
Among those people who have been afflicted by termites, more than 85 percent of them think the termites have an unignorable effect to their life. However, there are still about one-third of them having no idea about the control measures. When being asked about “what is the major shortcoming of the existing control measure?” most people agreed that the lack of advertisement is the biggest problem. They were really happy that we were doing the advertising work about termites and termites' control. Also they were looking forward to a more effective, more easily accessible and more environmentally friendly measure of termites' control.
In depth Analysis
Besides people's comprehension of termites, damage situation and people's expect, our survey aims at knowing people's acceptability of our project and GMO. People's age, life style, life experience and amount of education have special influences on how people feel about this alternative way to control termites.
(1) Age groups
People of different ages have different life experience. People under 23 haven't stepped into the society. They have the curiousness to accept new knowledge and concept. Thus these people show more acceptability than other two groups.
People age between 23 and 55 have accumulated some life experience. But they also keep the possibility to accept new things. These people show a certain extent of acceptability of our project.
People that older than 55 usually have built up a certain mode of choice. They believe in their experience and hard to alter. Therefore they show the lowest acceptability.
(2) Amount of education
With the amount of education going up, people usually have more rational knowledge. They show less conflict against the GMO. Meanwhile, they pay more attention to the environmental protection. Thus people who received more education show more acceptability of our project. But though, there are still many people who is worrying about GMO. We have to consider about this problem further.
Conclusion
According to the survey result, many people didn't realize the severe problem of termites. It urges us to do more advertisement work of termites and termites' control, which we have planned to do in human practice. The result tell us the problem of the existing control measure and people's expect. We find out the key point of our project and where we should focus on. We are glad that many people support our idea and show a certain amount of acceptability. But the rest opponent force us to think more about the GMO problem. These thoughts are included in our application scenario, techno moral vignettes and other outreach parts.
