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Hi,
I'm Tyler Arnold, a high school junior in NC. For my AP Research course, I am surveying pilots to identify aspects of flight training that can slow pilot progression. If you are interested, I've attached the link to the survey so that you can participate. It's a short survey outlining your experiences and this is all you need to do if you choose to participate.
If you have any questions feel free to message me!
https://forms.gle/2S7Z83zKQMnBmsxp7
Hi Tyler, welcome to the forum. Your questionnaire is, indeed, short, but there's (IMO) too many multiple choice questions, or at least not enough flexibility in answers that don't fit my case (and I suspect others), though I applaud the questions with an answer "Other" allowing free form text. I'm afraid you won't attain the accuracy you'd like with the way things are laid out, but below are some comments that I would like to have included in a "Comments" section of the survey. Note that my flight training started in 1969, with a free lance instructor (so Part 61, but not a school as such), and note too that training back then was, in many ways, a lot different from that of today. Anyhow, here are my "comments:"
OK, you have attempted to quantify a person's life into multiple choice, which has NEVER fit me in all of the questionnaire's I've encountered over the years. I took your survey, but it may not be much help to you because you made no provision for (formal) training being finished almost 50 years ago, nor for a person who was a commercial pilot and CFI but was NOT pursuing a career in aviation, just an avocation, nor for the fact that a person can have a CFI AND an ATP and other combinations --it's not a straight either/or as your questions imply. You are making assumptions that only a simple Private pilot or a pilot working in the aviation field will answer, and that the person's flight training is recent. Things have changed drastically in flight training since I took mine.
AND, you made no provision for comments in your survey to receive comments such as this. So I suspect that whatever conclusion(s) you reach from this will be skewed in some odd direction from what you intended, and you won't know it.
A final comment: Life and training in aviation can take many routes, not just a straight enrollment in one of two types of schools, and can be piecemeal over a number of years in some cases, or compressed into a few short months in other cases, and can even be influenced by a person's previous experiences. Some folks grow up around aviation, part of their family, while others start totally cold, and some start at age 14 (or whatever) while others may start at age 70 or later. And frequency of flight during training can have a major effect on how effective the training is, how easy it is, how costly it is, and more.
I'm sure others will add their thoughts and opinions here, too, so best of luck, and I hope I've given you some food for thought and for discussion in your class.
Hi, thanks for your feedback! I did my best with making a standard survey that could be analyzed in a simple way, which has certainly oversimplified some responses as you noted, and this is a shortcoming that I now know to include in my final report. As for comments on the survey, that is definitely a good idea that I should have thought of when making my survey. All feedback is very helpful to me because it provides me with information to add in my results discussion since the research design I am utilizing is meant to provide a baseline for future studies. Thanks to you and others, I know where future studies could be improved and I can include that in my research paper/presentation. Happy flying and stay safe!