Survey research

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1 Description
2 Types of Surveys
3 Advantages
4 Disadvantages
5 Example of Survey research
6 References

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Description

Survey research is an observation with insight

Sur- : Latin word, it means above, over and beyond
-vey : it means to look or to see over or beyond

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Types of Surveys

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Mail Survey

Mail surveys are delivered to groups of houses and allow respondents to fill in answers about a particular topic/product in their own time. Mail surveys are very inexpensive to produce however response rates are very low with majority of people considering surveys as junk mail. Detailed answers are usually not given as short and quick, yes or no answers are less time consuming for the respondent.

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Group Administered Questionnaire

Group administered questionnaires is where a group of respondents are brought together in one space to respond to a series of structured questions asked by a researcher/interviewer. If the respondents are unclear on something, clarification can be given and discussed as a group, however answers must be to your own accord. Organisational settings are usually used to assemble a group (such as in a company or business).

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Household Drop-Off

Household drop-off surveys is when a researcher goes to the respondents home and/or business and personally hands them the survey. The respondent can work on the survey in private and at a time that suits them and they are usually left with a contact number that can be used if questions need to be asked to the researcher/interviewer ensuring that clarification can be given.

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Personal Surveys

Personal surveys are strictly one-on-one where the interviewer meets directly with the respondent. Personal surveys can be very time consuming and interviewers have to be well trained in how to respond and record answers. The respondents answers are usually very detailed as personal surveys form a conversational answer system.

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Telephone Surveys

Telephone surveys are one-on-one which allow personal contact between the interviewer and the respondent via the telephone. Follow-up questions can be asked by either the respondent or the interviewer and respondents can choose to not answer a question. Private phone numbers can be a hurdle when it comes to telephone surveys causing the selected group of people/respondents to be lowered. Respondents tend to not like the intrusion and often do no want to take part in the interview.

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Online Survey Research

Conducting an online survey research used to be very time consuming, extremely difficult and only certain people with knowledge of HTML or other scripting program were able to create online questionnaire. However, there are increasing numbers of online businesses that build survey software and provide researchers with ready made online survey engine. Due to this accessibility, the number of researcher using this research method is growing.

• Advantages

- Access to Unique Populations: Allow researcher to reach out to people who in usual circumstances impossible to contact (ex, people with rare diseases or conditions)

- Time: Internet allows researcher to reach thousands of people in short period of time

- Cost: Researcher are not require to print large amount of paper for questionnaires

• Disadvantages

- Sampling Issues: Because researcher are not directly dealing with the participants, they’re identify cannot be confirm

- Access Issues: Researcher might post an invitation on a community bulletin board but this might be seen as a spam instead of a legitimate invitation and therefore researcher might get into trouble with the community group

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