2.

2 SURVEY RESEARCH
Survey research is one of the most important areas of measurement in applied
social research. The broad area of survey research encompasses any measurement
procedures that involve asking questions of respondents. A "survey" can be anything
forms a short paper-and-pencil feedback form to an intensive one-on-one in-depth
interview.

We'll begin by looking at the different types of surveys that are possible. These
are roughly divided into two broad areas: Questionnaires and Interviews. Next, we'll
look at how you select the survey method that is best for your situation. Once you've
selected the survey method, you have to construct the survey itself.

Types of Surveys
Surveys can be divided into two broad categories: the questionnaire and
the interview.

Questionnaires are usually paper-and-pencil instruments that the respondent

completes. Interviews are completed by the interviewer based on the respondent
says. Sometimes, it's hard to tell the difference between a questionnaire and an
interview. For instance, some people think that questionnaires always ask short closed-
ended questions while interviews always ask broad open-ended ones. But you will see
questionnaires with open-ended questions (although they do tend to be shorter than in
interviews) and there will often be a series of closed-ended questions asked in an
interview.

Survey research has changed dramatically. Computers, mobile phones, internets

are available for a fast, and easy online survey. A whole new variation of group
interview has also evolved as focus group methodology.

 Questionnaires

When most people think of questionnaires, they think of the mail

survey.

There are many advantages in using questionnaire.

It can be send to a wide number of people. They allow the respondent to fill it out at
their own convenience.

But there are some disadvantages as well. Response rates from questionnaires are
often very low. And, mail questionnaires are not the best vehicles for asking for detailed
written responses.

A second type is the group administered questionnaire. A sample of respondents is

brought together and asked to respond to a structured sequence of questions.

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 Traditionally, questionnaires were administered in group settings for
convenience. The researcher could give the questionnaire to those who were present
and be fairly sure that there would be a high response rate. If the respondents were
unclear about the meaning of a question they could ask for clarification. And, there
were often organizational settings where it was relatively easy to assemble the group
(in a company or business, for instance).

What's the difference between a group administered questionnaire and a

group interview or focus group?

In the group administered questionnaire, each respondent is handed an

instrument and asked to complete it while in the room. Each respondent completes an
instrument. While, in the group interview or focus group, the interviewer facilitates the
session. People work as a group, listening to each other's comments and answering the
questions. Someone takes notes for the entire group -- people don't complete an
interview individually.

A less familiar type of questionnaire is the household drop-

off survey. In this approach, a researcher goes to the
respondent's home or business and hands the respondent the
instrument.

In some cases, the respondent is asked to mail it back or the

interview returns to pick it up. This approach attempts to blend
the advantages of the mail survey and the group administered questionnaire. Like the
mail survey, the respondent can work on the instrument in private, when it's
convenient. Like the group administered questionnaire, the interviewer makes personal
contact with the respondent -- they don't just send an impersonal survey instrument.
And, the respondent can ask questions about the study and get clarification on what is
to be done. Generally, this would be expected to increase the percent of people who are
willing to respond.

 Interview

Interviews are a far more personal form of research than

questionnaires. In the personal interview, the interviewer works
directly with the respondent. Unlike with questionnaire, the
interviewer has the opportunity to probe or ask follow-up questions.
And, interviews are generally easier for the respondent, especially if
what is sought is opinions or impressions. Interviews can be very

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time consuming and they are resource intensive. The interviewer is considered a part of
the measurement instrument and interviewers have to be well trained in how to
respond to any contingency.

Almost everyone is familiar with the telephone interview.

Telephone interviews enable a researcher to gather information
rapidly. Most of the major public opinion polls that are reported
were based on telephone interviews. Like personal interviews,
they allow for some personal contact between the interviewer
and the respondent. And, they allow the interviewer to ask
follow-up questions.

But they also have some major disadvantages. Many people don't have publicly-
listed telephone numbers. Some don't have telephones or mobile phones. People often
don't like the intrusion of a call to their homes. And, telephone interviews have to be
relatively short or people will feel imposed upon.

Constructing the Survey

There are numerous small decisions that must be made in constructing a survey,
such as the content, wording, format, and placement. It has important consequences
for your entire study.

There are three areas involved in writing a questionnaire:

 determine the question content, scope and purpose

 choosing the response format that you use for collecting information from the
respondent
 figuring out how to word the question to get at the issue of interest
 Finally, once you have your questions written, there is the issue of how best to
place them in your survey.

Although there are many aspects of survey construction that are just common
sense, if one is not careful you can make critical errors that have dramatic effects on
the results.

Types Of Questions
Survey questions can be divided into two broad
types: structured and unstructured.

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  Dichotomous Questions

When a question has two possible responses, we consider it dichotomous.

Surveys often use dichotomous questions that ask for a Yes/No, True/False or
Agree/Disagree response. There are a variety of ways to lay these questions out on a
questionnaire:

Do you believe in same sex marriage?

_______yes _____No

Gender

_______Male ______Female

 Questions Based on Level Of Measurement

Questions can be classified in terms of their level of measurement. For instance, we

might measure occupation using a nominal question. In the example below,
the number next to each response has no meaning except as a placeholder for
that response. The choice of a "2" for a businessman and a "1" for a public
servant is arbitrary. From the numbering system used we can't infer that a
businessman is "twice" something that a public servant is.

Occupation class

1 – Public servant

2 – Businessman

3 - Others

A nominal question is a type of survey question that presents people with multiple
answer choices; the answers are non-numerical in nature and don't overlap
(unless you include an ‘all of the above’ option).

When to use nominal questions?

Nominal questions work well when there is a limited number of categories for a
given question. They’re easy for people to answer and for you to create graphs, but
the disadvantage is that it may have a lot of categories for respondents to choose from.

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Which browser are you using?

1. Chrome
2. Safari
3. Firefox
4. Explorer
5. Other (allows open-ended response)

We might ask respondents to rank order their preferences for favorite subjects using
an ordinal question

Rank the subjects in order of preference from best to worst

_____Filipino

_____English

_____Mathematics

_____Social Science

_____Physics

The respondent can put a 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 next to the subject, where 1 is the

respondent's first choice. State explicitly the instruction so as not to confuse the
respondent.

We can also construct survey questions that attempt to measure on an interval level.
One of the most common of these types is the traditional 1-to-5 rating (or 1-to-
7, or 1-to-9, etc.). This is sometimes referred to as a Likert response scale.

The Likert scale is typically a 5- or 7- point scale that evaluates a respondent’s

level of agreement with a statement or the intensity of their reaction towards
something.

The scale develops symmetrically: the median number (e.g., a ‘3’ on a 5-point
scale) indicates a point of neutrality, the lowest number (always a ‘1’) indicates an
extreme view, and the highest number (e.g., a ’5’ on a 5-point scale) indicates the
opposite extreme view.

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 1 2 3 4 5

Strongly Disagree Neutral Agree Strongly

Disagree Agree

Covid-19 has also advantages

Another interval question uses an approach called the semantic differential.

Here, an object is assessed by the respondent on a set of bipolar adjective pairs (using
5-point rating scale):

Please state your opinions on the subject, Statistics

Finally, we can also get at interval measures by using what is called a cumulative
or Guttman scale. Here, the respondent checks each item with which they agree. The
items themselves are constructed so that they are cumulative which means that if you
agree to one, you probably agree to all of the ones in the list

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  Filter or Contingency Questions

Sometimes you have to ask the respondent one question in order to determine if
they are qualified or experienced enough to answer a subsequent one. This requires
using a filter or contingency question. For instance, you may want to ask one question
if the respondent has ever smoked marijuana and a different question if they have not.
in this case, you would have to construct a filter question to determine whether they've
ever smoked marijuana:

Response Format
The response format is how you collect the answer from the respondent. It is
classified into unstructured response formats and structured response formats.

 Structured Response Formats

Structured formats help the respondent to respond more easily and help the
researcher to accumulate and summarize responses more efficiently. Below are
examples of structured formats

 Fill-In-The-Blank. One of the simplest response formats is a blank line. A blank

line can be used for a number of different response types. For instance:

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Gender:

_____ Male

_____ Female

_____ LGBT+

The respondent can put a check mark or an X next to the response. This is also
an example of a dichotomous response, because it only has two possible values. Other
common dichotomous responses are True/False and Yes/No. Here's another common
use of a fill-in-the-blank response format:

Please enter your preference for the following candidates where '1' = your first choice,
'2' = your second choice, and so on.

_____ Robert Dole

_____ Colin Powell
_____ Bill Clinton
_____ Al Gore

 Check The Answer. The respondent places a check next to the response(s).
The simplest form would be the example given above where the person is asks
to indicate their gender. Sometimes, a box is used so that the respondent can fill
in with an 'X'.

Please check the box if the following gadget is/are available in your home.

Computer

Laptop

Mobile phone

Printer

In the example, it is possible to check more than one response. This is

sometimes referred to as a multi-option variable. Ina multi-option variable the
respondent can select any of the options, thus, each option is treated as a separate
variable.

For instance, for each option we would normally enter either a '0' if the
respondent did not check it or a '1' if the respondent did check it. For the example

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above, if the respondent had only a mobile phone, we would enter the sequence 0, 0,
1, 0. The reason for this code is to easily compute the sum and percentage especially if
we are using spreadsheet in summarizing the data.

 Circle The Answer. Sometimes the respondent is asked to circle an item to

indicate their response. For instance, we might have the following:

Notice that you can only check one option at a time. The rule of thumb is that
you ask someone to circle an item. In contrast to the multi-option variable described
above, we refer to this type of item as a single-option variable. Even though the
respondent has multiple choices, they can only select one of them. This would be
analyzed as a single variable that can take the integer values from 1 to 5.

 Unstructured Response Formats

While there are a wide variety of structured response formats, there are
relatively few unstructured ones.

What is an unstructured response format? Generally, it is a written text. If the

respondent (or interviewer) writes down text as the response, you've got an
unstructured response format. These can vary from short comment boxes to the
transcript of an interview.

In almost every short questionnaire, there are one or more short text field
questions. One of the most frequent goes something like this:

Please add any other comments:

_____________________

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 OUTPUT 3

Let’s DO this
Group activity

 Look for two (2) sample questionnaires (if possible, in line with your
course). In each questionnaire, identify the type of questions
(Dichotomous, based on level of measurement, etc.). Also, identify its
possible response format

 Take a picture or a screen shot of the questionnaires.

 You can either write or encode your answers.

 Email the output at lynnremo@buksu.edu.ph

 File name and subject in email: Section code A2.2 – Last names

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