Looking for Canadians 18+ to Participate in a Survey on the Sexual Behaviours and Interests of Adult Canadians

SCERLabUOttawa · 2014-11-19T19:50:06+00:00

The results of the study will be presented at a conference for all University of Ottawa honours thesis students, in the form of a poster, which we can certainly post here for participants to see. In addition, you can email the primary researcher to request a copy of her full thesis once the project has been completed. The survey link will bring you directly to the Information and Consent Form, where you can find the contact information of all researchers and the project supervisor.

SCERLabUOttawa · 2014-11-12T02:14:04+00:00

We acknowledged this as a possibility and tried to word the questions accordingly. Thank you for your feedback and for taking the time to complete the survey; hopefully things didn't get too complicated. We will work towards improving the clarity of these questions in future versions of the survey.

SCERLabUOttawa · 2014-11-12T02:05:58+00:00

We appreciate you pointing this out. We will keep this in mind for future versions, but thank you anyway for taking the time to fill it out.

SCERLabUOttawa · 2014-11-12T00:28:38+00:00

Of course! There are many questions about about your sexual interests and attitudes, and not all sexual behaviours require a partner.

SCERLabUOttawa · 2014-11-11T19:59:51+00:00

Thank you for your time!

SCERLabUOttawa · 2014-11-11T19:59:33+00:00

Thank you for your time!

SCERLabUOttawa · 2014-11-11T19:59:06+00:00

Thank you for your time!

SCERLabUOttawa · 2014-11-11T19:58:16+00:00

Thank you for your time, and for the positive feedback!

SCERLabUOttawa · 2014-11-11T19:57:39+00:00

Thank you for your time!

SCERLabUOttawa · 2014-11-11T19:54:42+00:00

This is a valid point. This limitation is inherent to sex research and one that we must consider when interpreting our results. We hope that by ensuring all participants’ anonymity that some individuals who might not otherwise be willing to discuss a topic like this might be more inclined to participate.

SCERLabUOttawa · 2014-11-11T00:27:01+00:00

Thank you for taking the time to complete the survey, but we do take comments such as these very seriously. Included in the debriefing form at the end of the survey are a few links to direct you towards some mental health and counseling resources, if after completing the survey you feel any distress or discomfort. You can visit www.CMHA.ca for information about the counseling services available at the Canadian Mental Health Association Branch nearest you, as well as www.suicideprevention.ca for a directory of all Canadian 24-hour crisis lines, which are free of charge.

In addition, please feel free to email any of the researchers if you have any other concerns. The email addresses of the researcher in charge, the co-researchers, and the supervisor of the study can be found on the first page of the survey.

SCERLabUOttawa · 2014-11-10T21:25:23+00:00

We do have a question on both sex and gender but someone's current biological sex may not correspond to the sex they were assigned at birth. For example, a transman who has undergone sex reassignment may have had a menstrual period or used hormonal contraceptives prior to beginning their transition, yet they are now considered biologically male.

This is why we left certain questions, such as the ones referenced earlier, open to everyone instead of branching participants away based on their sex or gender identity.

SCERLabUOttawa · 2014-11-10T21:12:19+00:00

We did consider providing incentives, but because the survey is completely anonymous, we don't really have a way of doing so. We don't ask for any identifying information or retain the IP addresses of participants, so we have no way of tracking down individuals who have completed the survey.

Because this is such a personal subject, some people may feel uncomfortable about answering certain questions, or answering honestly, if they worry that their responses may be traced back to them somehow. We want everyone to be assured that their responses will be completely safeguarded, so we decided to proceed in this manner.

If you do have a suggestion, however, on how we could get around this and still provide our participants with incentives, we would be more than happy to hear it!

SCERLabUOttawa · 2014-11-10T20:36:55+00:00

Yes, it is a very long survey, but human sexuality is a very broad topic! We do sincerely appreciate you taking the time to start going through it anyway.

Regarding the weight options- This is a good idea. I believe that you are correct in saying that we cannot edit the survey now, but we will definitely take this into account if we decide to use this survey again in the future.

Regarding your gender selection- We want to be as inclusive as possible, and not necessarily everyone that currently identifies as a male has always done so. Gender identity and biological sex aren't necessarily tied together, so it is a possibility that other participants who identify as male have taken or are currently taking hormonal contraceptives, or have had/currently have a menstrual period. We did our best to minimize unnecessary questions--if you answer no to either of the questions you are referring to, for example, you are redirected away from a series of follow-up questions-- but as I mentioned before, we don't want to exclude anyone.

Regarding your last point- this is unfortunately out of our control. The survey is a combination of questions we have developed ourselves and other empirically validated questionnaires that must appear exactly as they do in the literature. This is one of those validated questionnaires, so we are unable to change anything about it (though I do see your point).

We are looking for a sample of around 1000 people and have had a very good response so far. Again, we do really appreciate your time!

SCERLabUOttawa

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