Survey results: UCAS and the “Other” gender option (multiple choice answer wordings)

311 people took part in the survey, and I’ll just say thank you now to everyone who took part and promoted with us: thank you! :)

This blog post is a summary of the results, for easy digestion. There’s a Google Doc report thing that you can save as a PDF. You can find the results in full in this Google Sheet.

The first question

This one asked people to rate on a scale of one to five (one being “ugh” and five being “I feel included!”) four different wordings that could be chosen as multiple choice answers, specifically when the person filling in a form doesn’t fit any of the named, specified identities already stated for validation purposes. They were:

Other

Not otherwise specified

Not listed

None of the above

For each I added up the negative results and the neutral/positive results and compared them with a ratio. None of the above had the highest positive/neutral:negative result.

I then gave each option a score, with 1/ugh being -2, 2/do not like being -1, 3/whatever and no answer both being 0, 4/I feel okay about this being 1, and 5/I feel included being 2. Again, none of the above was most popular.

The second question

That one just asked which of the above was your favourite, and there was a box to write in something else if your preferred option wasn’t listed at all.

Interestingly, despite the results of the previous question, the most people picked the specific “Other” option. In addition, lots of people filled in the third question (asking for commentary on the survey) to say that they had picked “Other” on the condition that it came with a text box to specify. More people still chose the “Other [text box]” option in order to specify that their favourite was “Other [text box]”! Since there’s a lot of confusing info here, I’ve broken it down:

28 people said they wanted “Other” with a text box.

13 people said they wanted some label (non-specific or something not “Other”) and a text box.

23 people said they wanted no multiple choice, and everyone should have to just write/type their gender.

6 people wanted to be able to choose more than one.

15 people said they wanted “nonbinary” to be on gender lists.

So the answer to the “what’s your favourite?” question is actually pretty complex. There were people from each camp who said that they wanted a text box.

Summary

“None of the above” is preferred, but if you include the requests for a text box then “Other” is at least a very close second.

Gratitude

Thank you! Every single response is appreciated and valuable and will contribute to better forms by UCAS. :)