The post-conference participant survey was released to the conference participants via email and WeChat posting on June 23. By the deadline of July 10, 151 answers were received in the online survey system. 

1.  Composition of respondents

1.2  By professional title

Among the 151 respondents, 44.4% were students, followed by assistant professors (27.1%) and associate/full professors (28.5%)

1.2  By region

As high as 82.1% (124) of respondents are the participants from Mainland China. Those from other regions of Asia only account for 8.6% and there were even fewer respondents from Europe and America, etc.

1.3  By the role at the conference

Among the respondents, 43% had their papers presented at paper/roundtable sessions and 9+% were session chairs/facilitators. Nearly half of them were conference attendees only.

1.4  In terms of previous participation

Among 151 respondents, over 44% were new IACMR members, attending the biennial conference for the first time; while 55.6% (84) had participated the conferences before.

2.  Results of survey questions

This year PDW sessions enjoy highest praise with 43% respondents responded ‘very satisfactory’ followed by the keynote panels with 39%, and 80% of the respondents were happy (both agree strongly and agree) with the quality of symposium sessions. On the contrary, as many as 27% respondents were not pleased about ‘registration fees’ and nearly 20% of people did not think the conference was well organized. Overall, nearly 70% of respondents were satisfied with the conference.

The following is the summary of combined percentage indicating ‘satisfactory’ (both agree strongly and agree) and ‘unsatisfactory’ (both disagree strongly and disagree).

3.  Comments on the conference and program booklet

3.1  Three things that you like most about the Conference

Out of 151 respondents, 87 mentioned one thing they like most, 77 gave two and 65 gave three. The five most-mentioned answers are as follows.

1. Benefited a lot academically
2. Good opportunities of exchanges with prominent scholars
3. ‘Coffee and Conversation’ and PDW sessions are very good
4. Some chairs/discussants made excellent comments
5. The conference venue is excellent

3.2  Comments on areas to be improved in future conferences
Out of 151 respondents, 98 gave one answer, 79 gave two and 49 gave three. The five most-mentioned answers are as follows.

1. The quality of some paper presentations was not satisfactory.
2. The registration fee is somewhat high; means of payment are not sufficient.
3. Quite some participants did not wear name badges and they were suspected to be unpaid participants. It gave bad experience to paying participants.
4. There must be quality control on session chairs because some chairs did not do a good job; A few session chairs did not show up without prior notice. There must be timely notice if the session chair cannot make it.
5. Lunches were expensive but not tasteful and the hotel service was not good plus poor staff attitude.

3.3  Most useful areas of the conference program booklet

Out of 151 respondents, 64 mentioned one thing they like most, 35 gave two and 23 gave three. The four most-mentioned answers are as follows.

1. Detailed programs with room number and time slots;
2. School recruitment information;
3. Participant index;
4. Blank pages for taking notes

3.3  Areas to be improved for the conference program booklet
Out of 151 respondents, 50 made one suggestion, 16 made two and 10 gave three. The four most-mentioned answers are as follows.

1. Inconvenient for looking up session information with English and Chinese program sessions listed separately.
2. Hope to have paper abstracts of brief introduction to sessions
3. Hope to have enough booklets for all participants – some were unable to get a printed copy of the program due to insufficient number of booklets this year
4. Too many advertisements