Survey research is used extensively nowadays and some of the areas where it is used are mental health, transportation needs and patterns of use, political behavior, characteristics of housing, its cost and appropriateness to familiar needs, and worker satisfaction (Fowler). Furthermore, according to Babbie (2007), it is perhaps the best method obtainable to the social researcher who is interested in collecting original data for describing residents too huge to examine directly. Surveys are also excellent means in which one can measure attitude and orientations in a large population.
An example is public opinion polls, and indeed, has become so prevalent that at times the public seems unsure what to think of them. Another type is making questionnaires and this offer a way of collecting data by asking people questions or asking them to agree or disagree with statements representing different points of view. The order of items in a given questionnaire could be influential in the responses given. Precise and accurate instructions are essential for getting appropriate responses in a questionnaire.
These questionnaires could be of three forms: by self-administered, face-to-face interviews, or telephone surveys. To compare them, telephone surveys can be cheaper and more economical than face-to-face interviews, and they can allow greater control over data collection. New technologies were also discussed by Babbie (2007), and these offer additional opportunities for social researchers. They include various kinds of computer-assisted data collection and analysis as well as the likelihood to conduct surveys by fax or over the internet. These types of surveys have strengths and weaknesses.
The advantage of self-administered questionnaire over an interview survey are saving, speed, lack of interview bias and the likelihood of secrecy and confidentiality to persuade truthful responses on sensitive issues. The advantages of an interview survey over a self-administered questionnaire are fewer unfinished questionnaires and fewer misunderstood questions, in general higher return rates, and greater flexibility in terms of sampling and extraordinary explanation. The most important advantages of telephone surveys over face-to-face interviews are the savings in cost and time.
Telephone interviewers are also safer than in-person interviewers, and they may have less important effect on the interview itself. Online surveys have also its share of strengths and weaknesses in mail surveys. Although they are much economical to conduct, it can be complicated to ensure that the respondents stand for a more universal population. In summary, survey research in general offers advantages in terms of economy, the amount of data that can be collected, and the chance to sample a large population. The equivalence of the data collected represents another extraordinary strength of survey investigation.
Survey research has the weaknesses of being rather artificial, potentially shallow, and comparatively inflexible. It’s not easy to use surveys to gain a full sense of social processes in their normal settings. In general, survey research is comparatively weak on soundness and strong on dependability.
Works Cited:
Babbie, Earl R. The Basics of Social Research. 4th ed. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2007. Fowler, Floyd J. Survey Research Methods: Survey Research Methods. Vol. 1. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, 2002.