# FILE NAME: 00000505.soc
# TITLE: Should the state subsidize parents who choose to homeschool their children? [8d4234eeddc24b183f283e4076a1efe0]
# DESCRIPTION: 
# DATA TYPE: soc
# MODIFICATION TYPE: original
# RELATES TO: 
# RELATED FILES: 
# PUBLICATION DATE: 2025-10-12
# MODIFICATION DATE: 2025-10-12
# NUMBER ALTERNATIVES: 4
# NUMBER VOTERS: 5
# NUMBER UNIQUE ORDERS: 5
# ALTERNATIVE NAME 1: Statement 1 - The state should not subsidize parents who choose to homeschool their children. As much as the parents may have good intentions they are not qualified to teach their children on a wide range of subjects, schooling will be poor and as such, a waste of money. This money would be far better used for schools who can make better use of the funding, for example, you can purchase 1 book which 1 homeschooling child would use for £20, or you could buy 1 book for £20 which 10 children freeing up funding for other materials. Conclusion This paper presents an approach to determining the consensus view of a group of participants using natural language. The approach uses an analysis of the word "should" in participant responses to determine if the group has reached a consensus. A consensus has been defined as when all of the participants in a group respond with a consensus word. A consensus word has been defined as any word that is highly likely to be used when a participant agrees with a proposed consensus statement. The approach is very quick and simple to implement and can be easily applied to a wide variety of consensus determination questions. In this paper, the consensus determination approach has been applied to a question in the field of philosophy, but it could also be applied
# ALTERNATIVE NAME 2: Statement 2 - The state should not subsidize parents who choose to homeschool their children. As much as the parents may have good intentions they are not qualified to teach their children on a wide range of subjects, schooling will be poor and as such, a waste of money. This money would be far better used for schools who can make better use of the funding, for example, you can purchase 1 book which 1 homeschooling child would use for £20, or you could buy 1 book for £20 which 10 children freeing up funding for other materials. In this exercise, the word "should" was used to assess whether or not the consensus view of the group matched that of the individuals. The graph below shows the word "should" being used when a consensus view was presented and that the graph peaked at 100% when the consensus matched that of the individual participants. From this exercise, we can see that: There is an open discussion of all the participants views. There are no restrictions on any participant's ability to express their view. There is a transparency of all viewpoints and a reaching of a consensus based on the data presented. Group consensus is based on all of the available data. The group has full transparency
# ALTERNATIVE NAME 3: Statement 3 - The state should not subsidize parents who choose to homeschool their children. As much as the parents may have good intentions they are not qualified to teach their children on a wide range of subjects, schooling will be poor and as such, a waste of money. This money would be far better used for schools who can make better use of the funding, for example, you can purchase 1 book which 1 homeschooling child would use for £20, or you could buy 1 book for £20 which 10 children freeing up funding for other materials. Participants responded well to this exercise and seemed to find the process interesting and enjoyable. However, some felt the use of a slider with the word "should" at each end did not give them enough information to form an opinion. It was also commented that more clear instructions on how to participate would have been beneficial. The facilitator of the study decided to use a slider instead of a 5 point scale because it was hoped that this would keep the exercise simple. It was commented that the slider made it hard to form a decision because it was not clear how to use it. In future studies, a 5 point scale would be a better option to give more of an idea of how to
# ALTERNATIVE NAME 4: Statement 4 - The state should not subsidize parents who choose to homeschool their children. As much as the parents may have good intentions they are not qualified to teach their children on a wide range of subjects, schooling will be poor and as such, a waste of money. This money would be far better used for schools who can make better use of the funding, for example, you can purchase 1 book which 1 homeschooling child would use for £20, or you could buy 1 book for £20 which 10 children freeing up funding for other materials. This example shows how word use can be analyzed to show how an individual participant and a group of participants agree or disagree on an opinion. This exercise would benefit from a greater number of participants to increase the range of opinions being discussed.
1: 4,1,2,3
1: 3,2,1,4
1: 2,1,4,3
1: 1,2,3,4
1: 4,2,1,3