Here are some answers, with accompanying images, to questions you may have about your survey report. The questions are arranged in the order they appear on your report. Some of these answers may be easier to understand than others!
The images come from a sample survey report that will likely differ from yours, though the structure of the report is the same.
Some general questions about assumptions underlying EcoTypes and the survey are found on the EcoTypes FAQ page, which may offer helpful clarification. Finally, feel free to submit a question if any issues remain unanswered.
What does GMT mean in the survey date/time?
This is a time-date stamp for when you submitted your survey. It’s in Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), which likely is not your time zone! Here is a converter, or you can Google “GMT conversion” and if your computer or device locale is known you’ll see the time difference.
What is my entry key and why should I remember it?
Your four- or five-digit entry key is an automatically generated random code you can use to retrieve your report at any time. Since your submitted data are fully anonymous, we cannot help you find your report if you lose this entry key!…write it down somewhere so you can remember it.
What about those social media icons on certain images?
You’ll see share icons for a variety of social media as you rollover certain images, including your EcoType. This makes it easy for you to share your EcoType or other images. (Your share post will link back to the EcoTypes home page, not your personalized report!)
Can you help me understand my EcoType image?
The sample EcoType image at right, Earth Justice, is based on the respondent’s survey results in comparison to all respondents. The green, blue, and orange boxes at top represent the themes of Place, Knowledge, and Action respectively: only distinctive characteristics (i.e., theme poles) of this EcoType in comparison to other EcoTypes are displayed.
Below the image is a phrase that conveys the gist of this EcoType in words. Below this phrase are a quick and expanded summary of the EcoType’s theme characteristics, and proportion assigned this EcoType among recent survey respondents.
Please explain what you mean by how close I am to my EcoType.
We can explain this to you!…but it takes some statistics and trigonometry. Ready? You were assigned to your EcoType based on your Place, Knowledge, and Action scores. This essentially defines a centroid for you in this three-dimensional space (the themes are orthogonal to each other, given how they were determined via factor analysis).
So, your three theme scores give you an XYZ location. And the five common EcoTypes also have an idealized XYZ location based on their theme characteristics: for instance, Earth Justice is -1 [nonhuman Place], 0 [no Knowledge characteristic], +1 [big Action], or {-1, 0, 1} in XYZ coordinates. Draw a line between the two, or do the trig, and tou can calculate your distance!
Based on the statistical distributions of respondents, we can tell you whether this distance is more or less close to your EcoType. “Somewhat more close” is shorter than the median distance of all respondents to their assigned EcoTypes, while “somewhat less close” is longer than this median distance, while “much more” or “much less” close in the bottom and top 25th percentile of respondents, respectively.
Closeness is thus a statistical way to suggest how well you match your EcoType!
I don’t think my assigned EcoType fits me very well.
The answer above gives statistics behind how close you are to the EcoType you were assigned. In some cases, you may be “much less close” to your EcoType than were other respondents; or, you may be similarly close to another EcoType that you feel fits you better (see comparison chart, next FAQ).
In some cases, the distance between you and your assigned EcoType is so great that you will receive the below warning on your report:
Caution: your score is extremely far from all five common EcoTypes (above the 95th percentile of respondents). It is likely that, assuming you completed the EcoTypes survey in earnest, yours is a distinct EcoType from these five.
If you receive this warning, yours may be a unique EcoType not adequately summarized in the five most common ones! That’s okay. Can you come up with a name for your EcoType, based on its distinguishing theme characteristics?
Can you help me understand the EcoTypes comparison chart?
You learned above how your EcoType was assigned, based on the proximity of your theme centroid to those of the five EcoTypes. This also suggests how close you are to your assigned EcoType.
But how close are you to all five EcoTypes? Maybe you intuitively feel close or distant relative to other Ecotypes.
The comparison chart displays the distance between your theme centroid and all five common EcoTypes; the closer the distance, the better the fit with your survey data.
In the sample chart, for instance, the respondent was assigned Earth Justice as the shortest distance between their centroid and the EcoType, but they are also relatively close to Ecospirituality, and may feel an affinity for that EcoType too. In contrast, they probably don’t feel much affinity for the Science Policy Ecotype, as it is the farthest from their theme centroid.
Can you help me understand my theme images?
All three theme images (Place, Knowledge, Action) are basically the same, but they display different values based on your survey data. The image at right shows a sample Place score and compares it visually with simple descriptive statistics (mean + standard deviation) for all respondents.
As you remember, each theme has two poles. Scores that tend toward the left pole are negative; those that tend toward the right pole are positive. The white dot gives an approximation of your score along this left pole to right pole spectrum.
Your score was calculated as the weighted average of all contributing axis scores, where axes and weighting were determined by factor analysis of all respondents. This Place theme score, for instance, is a weighted average of the Aesthetics, Animals, Cities, Ecosystems, Ethics, and Nature scores.
The sample data score of -0.5 leans pretty strongly toward nonhuman Place, even relative to other respondents. The “much lower” wording here is based on theme score percentiles. If your score falls between the 40-60th percentile, it is “about the same”; if between the 60th-80th percentile, “higher”; if over the 80th percentile, “much higher.” The same is true on the other end: if between the 20th-40th percentile, it is “lower”; if under the 20th percentile, “much lower.”
What does my polarity score mean?
Your polarity score is the average (expressed from 0 to 1) of all your axis statement scores. When you responded to each axis statement, “strongly” disagree or agree was scored as +/- 1.0; “agree” or “disagree” was scored as +/- 0.5; and “neutral/mixed” was scored as 0.0. Your polarity score is the average of all 36 axis statement scores, where all are expressed as positive numbers.
As a rule of thumb, axis scores greater than 0.5 mean that you tended to “strongly” agree or disagree with the axis statements, and thus displayed strong opinions. Below is a summary distribution of polarity scores you might use to compare yours to others.
It’s important to note that high (or low) polarity scores are not necessarily a good or bad thing! There could be all sorts of reasons why you might display high or low polarity. This statistic, however, gives you a potential point of comparison with others, and with yourself over time. You may find, for instance, that your polarity score increases over time as your opinions on environmental ideas settle; you may, conversely, find that your polarity score decreases over time as you appreciate the full range of opinion on each axis as expressed via its poles.
What do my eighteen axis scores mean?
As summarized immediately above, your responses to axis statements were recoded between -1.0 (left pole) and +1.0 (right pole). If you, for instance, strongly agreed with a statement that represents the left pole of an axis, your score for that statement would be -1.0.
You may remember that your survey consisted of 36 statements, or two statements per axis. (These were statistically derived over time from the original eight statements per axis, to offer everyone a quicker survey experience.) The average of the two scores for each axis is your axis score, as shown by the white dot on a continuum, which itself is colored green, blue, or orange to suggest how each axis contributes the Place, Knowledge, and Action themes; see here for further information on these themes.
In this sample survey image, the average Aesthetics score leans strongly toward the Wild pole, and the score for Animals similarly tends toward the left pole, but the Change axis score tends strongly toward the right pole. You’ll see eighteen of these axis scores on your report, from Aesthetics to Time. You can click the link on each for more information about that axis.
These axis scores are interesting points of departure for comparing yourself with others, but ultimately it’s important to try and stretch toward how these axes contribute toward theme scores, and ultimately your EcoType, all derived from multiple axis scores. Since each individual axis score is only the average of your response for two statements, it’s less robust than your theme scores, which are derived from all axis scores contributing to that theme—from ten (2 x 5) in the case of Knowledge to fourteen (2 x 7) in the case of Action!