Although there are some interesting findings from my survey, there are multiple flaws with it.
Firstly, my second statement “There is no non-medical reason why a woman should refuse pain relief during labour” was very confusing to some people due to the double negative. In fact, 3 people told me that the question confused them, and 2 participants skipped the question. When looking at the results for this question, I should bear in mind that some people may have misunderstood the question, causing unreliable results. In my next survey, if I were to ask a similar question I would phrase it as “Women should always accept pain relief during labour. Do you agree?”
Secondly, my scales all go the same way. Any “strongly agree” result means a person is more pro-medical than natural birth. Acquiescence bias means that people are more likely to agree with statements than disagree with them, and this could mean that my survey has skewed the results to be more pro-medical birth. To improve this, I should either mix up how pro-medical my statements are, or use a different questioning method ie. “Medical intervention during birth is: a) essential, b) quite important, c) not very important or d) not important at all.
Thirdly, I have only collected quantitative data. My participants did not have the opportunity to explain why they felt as they did. Since childbirth is such a personal matter, it is essential that I allow my participants to express their feelings on specific topics. Although quantitative data is easy to put into graphs, I’m likely to get more detailed information from qualitative data. For this reason, if I do another survey, I will include “explain why” boxes, and I will also be conducting some interviews.
Fourthly, my sample is very biased towards people from the UK aged 16-20. Ideally I could do some kind of stratified sampling for people of different ages, genders and ethnicities. I am unsure how possible this will be, as there are so many subcategories within Western culture. I am also curious how perspectives of women who have babies compares to those who haven’t. Next time I should try to take a less biased sample; since I just posted the survey on social media, all I have done is take the opinions of those within my circle, which may mean my results lack ecological validity.
Midwifery EPQ 