I will unpack the following results gained from the 1st google forms which has collated data across both the Tuesday and the Wednesday of the event.
The data for rating connections to nature after interacting with herbs was only collated on the Wednesday and this is why there are only 22 respondents to those questions rather than 40. This was due to on the Tuesday I deemed the interactions with the herbs from people only passing through the cafe for a quick coffee etc to be too short to impact their connection to nature. So, I was relying on people completing the questions on the second google form once they were home to achieve an ‘after herbs’ result. This is because passersby of this sort were the main people I interacted with through the event, as they were the predominate customers of the cafe. However, after getting home on the Tuesday evening and reviewing the answers submitted in the 2nd google forms from the 19 people I had spoken to that day, only 1 had completed the form. Therefore, I realised on the Wednesday it was necessary to ask everyone the before and after questions then and there, in the hope of achieving some form of comparable data between before and after the herb interactions. Even up to this day only 3 people have given any answers on the 2nd google form, but only 1 has completed the majority of questions, the other two have only answered the first three questions!
The 1st Google Forms
The vast majority of participants in my event were females, although tis was predominately over the first day, with the Wednesday being more balanced between males and females. Across the 2 day event I managed to reached the majority of age ranges in some proportion, which I was happy with in gaining a sample of the public in relation to customers of hospitality spaces, as under 18s are less likely to visit hospitality spaces of their own accord.
Inclusion of Nature in Self Scale
Here we observe the top 3 most connected options (E, F, G) to hold 47.5% of the responses when asked at the start of the event. This almost being half of the participants, in this sample, means that the customers were already feeling fairly strongly connected to nature on the whole. The least connected option of A and B held the least amount of responses with only 7.5% of the vote.
When the question was asked again after taking part and engaging in the herb event, 50% of responses were the top 3 most connected options. This slight change (2.5%) in reported connectedness to nature suggests that there is strength in the event to impact connection to nature, which is very promising as it also had high engagement with 40 participants. To increase the rate of the change in connectedness, options such as lengthening the interaction with nature, creating more immersive interactions and transferring knowledge through the interaction may be beneficial. Consequently, these ideas will be interwoven into future iterations of the event.
However, I must be aware that the change in connection observed here between the two sections may partly reflect bias in answers from participants that think I want their answers to go up between asking the question before and after. Therefore, they may have reported a higher score after the event, even though I did assure participants I wanted truly honest answering throughout and there was no judgment in any answers given.
Rating Connection to Nature 1-10
Overall, the responses to the rankings of connectedness mimic that of the answers given to the inclusion of nature in self scale. The majority of answers are 7-10 on the scale and there is a slight increase in the scores given after the event. Subsequently, I feel that asking participants to rank their connection 1-10 may not be necessary next time, when also using the inclusion of nature in self scale. I only included this answer to gain greater detail into peoples connection by giving it a numerical value, but I realise the answers are rather similar to that of the scale and I feel that the scale is more accurate in targeting the relationship to nature I am trying to assess.
Rating Concern for Nature 1-10
The results for this question are skewed very much towards the higher end of the scale, with no responses for 1-4 on either the before or after questioning. This suggests concern for nature to be something rooted very highly amongst customers of this space. Therefore, concern for nature itself could be something worked into further interventions. For instance, creating sustainable events, or providing people with information of easy ways that they can assist nature; even helping them to assist nature through taking part in an intervention, however that may be achieved. This is something I will look into developing into future interventions.
With all of these answers scoring so highly, I am aware that there could be social biases taking rule here whereby there is so much coverage in modern news around the worries for the planet and nature and how much we should all care for it, that this may have been reflected in the answers of participants. People may feel that they should be concerned for nature even if they aren’t, which may have created some dishonest answering.
Rating Motivations to Help Nature 1-10
There is slightly more variation in answering here than with the concern question, suggesting that although people are worried for nature, they may not feel they can or want to act in its best interests. This could be interesting to try and create interventions that do actively aid nature, but that are also very easy for customers to get involved in, for instance having herbs as table decorations or edible flowers, which people can pick, eat and learn about . This could then make people want to grow, use and interact with these parts of nature once again; thus aiding nature. However, the answers were again predominately high scoring, suggesting that the majority of customers do feel strongly to act for nature and so this can be a clear way to attract people to events and experiences, that are in the interest of nature.
Just as with the concern answers, motivation also scored highly across everyone, suggesting again people may have answered this way because they feel they should. Of Course, there is the other side of the argument that suggests maybe everyone is very concerned for nature with the effects of climate change becoming evermore present on the planet and so it could be their honest answering.
The majority of interactions over the entirety of the event were rather short, as hardly anyone actually sat and ate at the cafe, most just passed through for a quick coffee. Therefore, it was hard to make a big impact on people’s connection to nature. So, in the next iterations of the event I aim to make the interaction with nature more impactful through being slightly longer where possible.
The 2nd Google Forms
Sadly, there is very little knowledge to be gained from the 2nd google forms, which asked additional questions for feedback about the event, as well as repeating the 4 questions above but asking them about after having taken cuttings of the herbs home, if there had been any impact to connection to nature. Only 3 out of the 40 participants who were all given the QR code to the forms have completed any answering, but no one has fully completed it and so there is little to evaluate from this forms. The only clear take away is this people are very unlikely to complete forms in their own time through this methodology, and so gaining responses then and there is vastly a better option.
If anymore responses are posted on the 2nd google forms over the coming days I will be sure to do an analysis of the findings.
Take Aways:
Having studied the results from the google forms and the feedback I recorded during the event, I have established the following parameters need to be incorporated into future iterations. There was a strong uptake in the event and a small change in connection (2.5%) despite interaction with the event begging short for most participants, which shows promise in the event and means that it can definitely be built upon to create even greater change in strength of connection to nature, see below ways for how to consider doing this:
- The interaction with the natural elements needs to be longer to evoke a change in people’s connection to nature. Making events more immersive, or transferring knowledge may also be tested out to achieve this goal.
- 85% of 40 people asked said that they would be attracted to a venue specifically if it was offering an experience with nature. The others would said that they wouldn’t be strictly attracted to visit the space, but many said they would still enjoy the natural elements once there but it wouldn’t draw them to the venue on their own. Suggesting there is a big market for natural events, experiences and designs.
- Needs to collate guaranteed before and after answers to the questions surrounding connection, as people rarely fill in forms after the event.
- Utilise inclusion of Nature in Self Scale as predominate measure, ask to rate concern and motivations to act for nature 1-10 if possible, but not as essential.
- The questions asked around connection need to be kept short to ensure engagement remains high.
- The event needs to bring nature to the people, as they feel far removed from it in the city.
- Create events to aid people’s concern for nature, which will also attract these people to the events. For instance, sustainable events, or providing people with information of easy ways that they can assist nature, or assisting nature through taking part in the event itself
- To get people motivated to act in the interest of nature create interventions that do actively aid nature, but that are also very easy for customers to get involved in. These events can then also attract those already motivated to help nature, as they will be aiding it even further.
The biggest breakthrough here is demonstrating that events like this can improve people’s connection to nature, even in a small way.