Detailed Instructions

Introduction

This study is about biofuels. Please keep in mind that this questionnaire is specifically designed to look at how you feel about second generation, wood-based*, cellulosic or advanced biofuels. When you see statements referring to biofuels, these are the types of biofuels we would like you to keep in mind. *Wood-based biofuels are made from a source composed of woody plant materials such as hybrid poplar trees.

Step 1

Read the statements provided by the survey application carefully and split them up into three piles: a pile for statements you tend to disagree with, a pile for statements you tend to agree with, and a pile for statements you are undecided about or are neutral toward.

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This activity should take about 5 minutes. Please, do not spend too much time on this activity. This step is to help you; quickly place the statements where you think they should go and then move on to the next step. You will be able to revisit this and change your mind later. You can either drag the cards into one of the three piles or press the numbers 1, 2, 3 on your keyboard.

IMPORTANT: If you want to read these instructions any time during the activity, press the help-button at the bottom right corner of the application that looks like a question mark (you may have to scroll down to view the icon). You can also keep these detailed instructions open as you go through the survey.

Step 2

Take the cards from the green “AGREE” pile at the bottom of the screen in the “card box” and read them again. You can scroll through the statements by using the scroll bar. Select the top two statements you most agree with and place them on right side of the score sheet below the “+5”.

Now read the cards in the red “DISAGREE” pile below again. Just like before, select the top two statements you most disagree with and place them on the left side of the score sheet below the “-5”.

Follow this procedure for all cards in the “AGREE” and “DISAGREE” piles below until you have placed all of them on the grid. Lastly, read the “NEUTRAL” grey colored cards again from the pile below in the “card box” and arrange them in the remaining open spaces of the grid.

Don’t worry if you feel frustrated; it is okay and even normal to place a card on the disagree side of the score sheet even if you actually agree with it because you ran out of room in the columns. The important thing is your relative arrangement of preferences.

TIPS: you can hover your mouse over the cards to view the full statement at any time. You can pull cards out and place them anywhere on the screen while you are sorting. You can even move the card box around. Most things on the page are moveable.

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AND you can expand the “card box” by clicking the tiny black triangle in the upper left corner of the card box.

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REMEMBER: If you want to read these instructions any time during the activity, press the help-button at the bottom right corner that looks like a question mark (you may have to scroll down to view the icon). You can also keep this detailed instructions page open during your survey.

What to do if you get stuck…

If you get stuck because you agreed or disagreed with too many statements that is no problem at all. Simply shift your statements one column over toward the “empty” area of the score grid until you have filled all of the spaces on the grid. What is important is the relative placement of your cards to each other where statements on the right side of the score sheet are statements you agree with more, and statements on the left side of the score sheet are statements you agree with less (or disagree with more). Here is an example from one person’s sort who only disagreed with three statements!

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Thank you again for your patience and willingness to take this sort. We know it takes a lot of brain power to do this type of survey, but your input is extremely valuable and is greatly appreciated!

Step 3

Now that you have placed all cards on the score sheet, please go back over your distribution one final time and rearrange any cards if you want to. Please resist the temptation to just put cards anywhere so you can finish this survey faster! (as it will severely bias your results)

The goal is for your preferences to be ranked at least relative to each other on the score sheet. In general, you should agree more with the statements on the right of the grid than with the statements on the left side of the grid.