The social sciences are a valuable but often overlooked element of coastal zone management. Issues from marsh restoration to flood mitigation all involve critical human elements - knowledge, values, and attitudes of the people that live, work, and play in these areas. Participants a solid social science foundation that includes basic knowledge and skills to help coastal managers understand their stakeholders. The two virtual sessions focus on understanding stakeholder basics and writing survey questions.

Session 2 is entitled Social Science Basics for Coastal Managers: Writing Effective Survey Questions. Surveys are a popular information collection tool to help coastal managers understand their stakeholders and quickly assess large populations. Unfortunately, because of their popularity, many people untrained in survey creation administer poorly designed surveys that yield questionable results. This module serves to provide coastal managers with best practices to write more effective survey questions.

Participants learn how to

• Review and critique surveys, and identify common mistakes in question design

• Incorporate 25 best practices when creating survey questions

• Create appropriate question layout and design

• Identify ways to improve survey questions that yield desired data types

The session lasts about 2 hours.

Webinar hosts: NOAA OCM, Grand Bay Reserve/MSDMR, and Weeks Bay Reserve/ADCNR/Lands Division/Coastal Section