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Title
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Questionnaire 1: 2020
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Subject
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COVID-19 (Disease)
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Description
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The Cork Folklore Project released an online questionnaire on 07 April 2020, in order to give people an opportunity to document the experiences of the
COVID-19 pandemic. Designed and administered by Clíona O’Carroll and James Furey, the questionnaire concentrated on the areas of stages of experience, everyday routine, ways we talk, community response, thoughts and preoccupations, challenges and coping, and the future.
This was the Cork Folklore Project’s first use of text questionnaires, and we did not anticipate the richness, emotion and detail of the responses.
The questionnaire was advertised through social media and word of mouth. Due to our reticence to aggressively promote it at a time of crisis, and to the difficulty of maintaining a public campaign from the perspective of our own resources, the majority of the responses were received by mid-May 2020. In this collection, we present each individual response, organised by date. We asked the respondents to say whether they would like to be named, and to provide us with a moniker to use. We have chosen to refer to individuals by the monikers provided or, in the case where people were happy to have their full names used, by their first name.
We are happy to accept any retrospective submissions, where individuals wrote notes or diaries at the time and would like to have them included in this 'early days of pandemic’ collection.
QUESTIONNAIRE PROMPTS
(Click here for the full questionnaire test)
Q. 1: STAGES. Can you briefly describe various stages in your understanding of what was/is happening with the Coronavirus (COVID-19) worldwide and at home, and your reaction to it? How do you feel that this process unfolded with others?
Q. 2: EVERYDAY ROUTINE. How has your everyday routine been affected? What is it like to work/study, either remotely or on-site? You might make a general list of your everyday activities. What's your relationship with news media? Then another side of things: what about rituals like birthdays, funerals?
Q. 3: GROUPS. Have you noticed how the experience differs for different kinds of people (e.g. different age or occupational groups, household make-up, location (locally or worldwide))? Can you describe any particular group/s which are facing up to different challenges or opportunities? Can you think of any conversations that you have had or things that you have noticed that illustrate this? Or anything else along these lines.
Q 4: WAYS WE TALK. Note how we talk about these times, either online or offline. Have new terms or phrases come into use to describe activities, phases and people? How do people refer to the future? Have you heard jokes, stories, rumours that you can note down here or describe, however briefly? What kinds of remote or visual communication has happened (e.g. objects in windows, drive-by greetings)? How have greetings changed? What is it like to live without the normal levels of personal contact? Or anything else along these lines.
Q. 5: COMMUNITY RESPONSE. Describe any events you have witnessed or heard of that capture your community’s response to the virus (example: shopping, a conversation with friends, a local or national initiative). Please specify in each case whether this was witnessed by you first-hand. Any examples of things that make you happy or annoy you? What comments do you have on Ireland's (and/or other countries') response in general?
Q. 6: THOUGHTS AND PREOCCUPATIONS. What do you find yourself thinking about recently?
Q 7: SIMILARITY TO PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE. Past respondents have told us that these times are sparking memories of past pandemics, such as Spanish Flu or polio. If you have such memories, either of experiencing them first hand, or of hearing family stories about them, we’d like to hear about it in detail. Other accounts of similarities in your life are also welcome.
Q 8: CHALLENGES AND COPING. What kinds of challenges are you facing, and how are you coping with them?
Q. 9: THE FUTURE. How do you think this event has affected society as it is? How might it affect the shape of society in the future?
Q. 10: IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE THAT SPRINGS TO MIND? Are there themes that we didn't cover? Do you have comments on the questionnaire? All observations are welcome!
Q. 11: IN A NUTSHELL. Can you sum up the impact that this experience has had on you or your community? Do you have any messages for future readers of the Chronicles of COVID-19? Long or short, polished or off-the-cuff, we are interested in your thoughts.
Related resources:
A West Cork People article, written by Clíona O’Carroll, describes this early period of ‘Chronicles of COVID-19’ collection and shares some of the content:
https://westcorkpeople.ie/coronavirus/add-your-voice-to-the-peoples-archive-of-covid-19-experiences/
HOW MANY RESPONSE?
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Creator
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Cork Folklore Project
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Date
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April - June 2020
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Publisher
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Cork Folklore Project
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Language
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English
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Rights
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Cork Folklore Project
