Conducting Survey What is a survey?

Conducting Survey

What is a survey?

• A "survey" can be anything from a short paper-and-pencil feedback form to an intensive one-on-one in-depth interview.

Why conduct survey research?

• Gather information not available from other sources
• Unbiased representation of population interest (depending on sampling)
• Consistency of measurement

Purpose

• The aim of survey research is to measure certain attitudes and/or behaviors of a population or a sample.
• The purpose of survey is to collect information from many individuals, hoping to understand them as a whole.

Surveys classified according to PURPOSES

• Exploratory survey: to form general ideas about the research questions
• Descriptive survey: to collect more specific descriptions of the variables of interest
• Explanatory survey: to develop understanding of relationships among variables of interest

Focus

• Survey research focuses on naturally occurring phenomena. Most often, respondents are asked for information.

SUBJECTS

• Most of the time, the population is so large that researchers must sample only a part of the population.
• So subjects are people involved in your survey.
• The number of subjects depends on the purpose and focus of the survey, that’s why nominal number of subjects must be at least 100

Types of Data

• quantitative
• qualitative

Methods

• Classified according to DATA COLLECTION APPROACHES
• Face-to-Face
• Paper-based
• Online
• Telephoning

Tools of the survey

• Interview
• Questionnaire:
• Open-ended questions
• Closed questions
• Tests

Some ‘sites’ to explore

• Internet Sites Related to Survey Research
• http://www.srl.uic.edu/srllink/srllink.htm
• American Statistical Association; Survey Research Methods Section Information.
• http://www.stat.ncsu.edu/info/srms/srms.html