Southeast Michigan ORV Park (Scramble Area)

[Jarhead]

The following is an excerpt I received from an email yesterday:

Since we last spoke, our research team has made some changes in our approach to the study and will not be surveying clubs at this time.

As I mentioned in our initial conversation, our primary source of survey respondents for the study will come from the DNR’s database of people who registered their ORVs in Michigan. Because we weren’t sure how thorough that list would be until we received it, our back-up plan was to consider using ORV club members for our study. However, now that we have the list from the DNR, we’ve realized it’s a better fit for this particular study than surveying clubs for the following reasons:

· It includes over 100,000 names, all with consistent contact information broken out by county (we want to make sure we get good representation from certain counties and out of state areas we think people would most likely travel from to a park in SE Michigan).

· It includes very casual ORV users as well as more invested ones (people who join clubs are presumably more invested in ORV use than those who aren’t)

· From a research methods perspective, it’s better to draw a sample from one population (in this case registered ORV users) rather than from multiple populations (each of the clubs that were willing to participate).

· We were concerned about the chance of someone getting the survey twice (once from the club and once from the DNR list).

There is a chance that later this spring or summer, we will want to conduct a follow-up study to this one with club members.

[Coyote Red]

I can't say that I blame them for wanting to change the survey population to one that is larger and more diverse. I am glad to see that this idea is still alive and not shot down.

[MattS]

Cool, thanks for the update Bob! I too am glad this idea is still alive an kicking.

[sumpter1]

Thanks for the update.

[TWEAK]

Thanks for the update and glad to hear that progress is being made. Do you know what format they are targeting for the survey? Electronic or Paper? I get surveys yearly from the DNR and they all seem to be different formats and styles (1 for whitetail, 1 for turkey, 1 for fishing, 1 for camping). Guess I am one of the lucky ones on their list, or they just target me because I actually respond.

[Jarhead]

Thanks for the update and glad to hear that progress is being made. Do you know what format they are targeting for the survey? Electronic or Paper? I get surveys yearly from the DNR and they all seem to be different formats and styles (1 for whitetail, 1 for turkey, 1 for fishing, 1 for camping). Guess I am one of the lucky ones on their list, or they just target me because I actually respond.

You may be one of the "lucky one's" if you buy your licenses on-line as that is where they have derived their data-pool to survey. For those of us that purchased our 2012 ORV Permit via the Michigan e-License web site, we are in the data-pool. How they focus or determine exactly which counties will be targeted, I do not know. The intent is to do both mailings and e-mails to gauge which method renders a better total response.

[Renegade II]

Maybe that's why I've been getting hammered with DNR & MSU studies? For the last 3-4 years I've bought all my stuff online.

[WhiteRhino]

Maybe that's why I've been getting hammered with DNR & MSU studies? For the last 3-4 years I've bought all my stuff online.

Naw, they're just trying to get info from people who are mall crawlers.

[fishyOO7]

I did the survey yesterday. It had some good questions. I like that they are asking. Hopefully something will come out of it.

[WhiteRhino]

Riding 100 miles per day cross country is different than a scramble area.