What *scale* are we using here...?
Mar. 30th, 2012 03:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnI volunteered to help with a local hedge survey. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what a hedge survey is, and the info supplied did not greatly enlighten me - but I thought it sounded interesting and assumed someone would tell me more before I got too involved.
Now I have an invite to a 'training day' with a form to fill in that asks (in Avenir 35 light, an unusual choice of font, though undeniably cheery):
"I would say that my skills/experience/knowledge of landscape archaeology is: poor / fair / good / high / expert
I would say that my skills/experience/knowledge of plant species identification is: poor / fair / good / high / expert "
I have no idea how to answer these questions. I'm tempted to say 'poor' for both, on the grounds that then I'm not raising expectations and presumably they are assuming a level of basic interest from the fact that I've volunteered at all? But then my plant species identification is better than my landscape archaeology, so maybe that should be fair. Except I'm not sure how fair, good, and high are different, they sound like Tolkienien elf-descriptions. But presumably they are on a sliding scale of some sort. If you were high, would you graduate to 'expert' if you wrote a book?
It also asks about 'relevant qualifications' which I always feel is a 'how long is a piece of string' question in a very Dirk Gently, fundamental-interconnectedness-of-all-things manner.
Now I have an invite to a 'training day' with a form to fill in that asks (in Avenir 35 light, an unusual choice of font, though undeniably cheery):
"I would say that my skills/experience/knowledge of landscape archaeology is: poor / fair / good / high / expert
I would say that my skills/experience/knowledge of plant species identification is: poor / fair / good / high / expert "
I have no idea how to answer these questions. I'm tempted to say 'poor' for both, on the grounds that then I'm not raising expectations and presumably they are assuming a level of basic interest from the fact that I've volunteered at all? But then my plant species identification is better than my landscape archaeology, so maybe that should be fair. Except I'm not sure how fair, good, and high are different, they sound like Tolkienien elf-descriptions. But presumably they are on a sliding scale of some sort. If you were high, would you graduate to 'expert' if you wrote a book?
It also asks about 'relevant qualifications' which I always feel is a 'how long is a piece of string' question in a very Dirk Gently, fundamental-interconnectedness-of-all-things manner.
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no subject
Date: 2012-04-02 03:32 pm (UTC)If it was a Kent Wildlife Trust survey, I'd expect people to reply something on these lines:
Expert - professional landscape archaeologist / ecologist / academic knowledge of hedgerow plants
High - Amateur field interest in such matters for many years, probably almost as good as professional
Good - A few years experience of local area hedgerows and some self study etc
Fair - Most people who have general interest and who see things and go home and look them up and learn from those lookings up
Poor - not a bloody clue of hedgerows or landscape archaeology
no subject
Date: 2012-04-02 03:48 pm (UTC)In that case I think I will rate myself good on plants, and fair on landscape archaeology, on the grounds that I'm better at the plants, but I have read a few books on the archaeology.
Now of course having figured out the boxes, I have to work out whether I can actually make the scheduled times for the course...