Section 2 

 QUESTIONNAIRE DEVELOPMENT 



2.1 THE CONCEPT OF THE PROGRAM 



It was determined that the goals of the program could best be met by two 

 separate types of questionnaires: 



1) an in-person interview questionnaire to extract data on previous 

 (historical) observations, and 



2) a sighting card to be filled out by the worker as soon as possible 

 after he sees a marine mammal. 



Previous experience with training scientific observers has indicated that if 

 observations are not written down within a few hours most of the details are 

 lost. Therefore, it seemed that the most realistic way to obtain valid data 

 would be to develop a sighting card which could be left on the platform for 

 the worker to fill out the same day that he saw a marine mammal. The sighting 

 cards would provide the most reliable and quantitative data for this program. 



However, it was also decided that there would be considerable value in adminis- 

 tering an in-person interview to question workers about marine mammals that 

 they had seen during the whole length of time they had been working on the 

 platform. Although the reliability of observations made as much as months or 

 years in the past is open to doubt, it seemed as though the goals of this 

 program would best be met by extracting all possible information from the 

 workers. In addition, it was likely that many workers who would not take the 

 time to fill out a sighting card would answer questions if contacted directly. 



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