AAPG Home : Member Survey of 2006

Exploring Member Attitudes in 2006

Results of a Quantitative Member Survey

Produced for the American Association of Petroleum Geologists
October 15, 2006

An Overview of the Survey Process next >

Survey Purpose & Design

The purpose of this project was to investigate AAPG member attitudes toward a wide range of subjects. The information gathered will provide a benchmark for tracking member attitudes and also may be used by AAPG management to make informed decisions regarding its present and future products, services, policies and procedures. While this survey replicated many of the facets of a previous member survey completed in 2003, and some of the results may be compared with the results of the 2006 survey, the content of the two surveys is different in many aspects.

Research Tactics

For the purpose of this study, 29,600 questionnaires were inserted into the August 2006 issue of the AAPG Explorer. In addition, the survey was posted on a password protected, third party website for member access. On August 31 and September 25, 2006, email “reminders” were sent to members asking for their response. Members were asked to return or complete their surveys for receipt no later than September 30, 2006. The respondents to this survey were asked to provide their AAPG member numbers as part of the survey form. However, this information was not verified or reported in any way and no information was linked to any individual member or group of members except as follows. By design, the survey captured selected demographic and historical information regarding the respondents, for the purpose of classification, without compromising the anonymity of the respondents.

Using these informational subsets, comparative data analysis has been performed segmenting the information into useful groupings to help readers of this report better interpret the data.

Research Confidence Levels

Statistically, the confidence levels of the data presented in this report are within +/- 5%, unless otherwise noted. Readers of this information should be aware that some charts or exhibits are based on subsets of the total group. Due to some smaller sample sizes, no more emphasis should be placed on the information than is warranted.

The Response

Not all members answered all questions. The highest response rate for a single question included answers from 2,937 members or 9.9 percent of the total survey distribution. The 2003 survey garnered responses from about 5.1 percent of the total distribution, for the sake of comparison. 538 surveys were tallied from the printed forms and 2,399 were collected and tabulated via the Internet.

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