This article throws light upon the three main tools for collecting data for research. The tools are: 1. Survey Design 2. Quotas 3. Scanning Questionnaires.
1. Survey Design:
Surveys can be a powerful and useful tool for collecting data on human characteristics, attitudes, thoughts, and behavior. Knowing what the client wants is the key factor to success in any type of business.
News media, government agencies and political candidates need to know what the public thinks. Associations need to know what their members want. Large companies need to measure the attitudes of their employees. The best way to find this information is to conduct a survey. Here, it is important to discuss options and suggestions on how to design and conduct a successful survey project.
Steps in a Survey Project:
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a. Establish the goals of the project-What you want to learn.
b. Determine your sample-Whom you will interview.
c. Choose interviewing methodology – How you will interview
d. Create your questionnaire – What you will ask
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e. Pre-test the questionnaire, if practical – Test the questions
f. Conduct interviews and enter data – Ask the questions
g. Analyze the data – Produce the reports.
Establishing Goals:
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The first step in any survey is deciding what you want to learn. The goals of the project determine whom you will survey and what you will ask them. If your goals are unclear, the results will probably be unclear.
Some typical goals include learning more about:
a. The potential market for a new product or service.
b. Ratings of current products or services.
c. Employee attitudes.
d. Customer/patient satisfaction levels.
e. Reader/viewer/listener opinions.
f. Association member opinions.
g. Opinions about political candidates or issues.
h. Corporate images.
These sample goals represent general areas. The more specific you can make your goals, the easier it will be to get usable answers.
Selecting Your Sample:
There are two main components in determining whom you will interview. The first is deciding what kind of people to interview. Researchers often call this group the target population. If you conduct an employee attitude survey or an association membership survey, the population is obvious.
If you are trying to determine the likely success of a product, the target population may be less obvious. Correctly determining the target population is critical. If you do not interview the right kinds of people, you will not successfully meet your goals.
The next thing to decide is how many people you need to interview. Statisticians know that a small, representative sample will reflect the group from which it is drawn. The larger the sample, the more precisely it reflects the target group.
However, the rate of improvement in the precision decreases, as your sample size increases. For example, to increase a sample from 250 to 1,000 only doubles the precision. You must make a decision about your sample size based on factors such as: time available, budget and necessary degree of precision.
The Survey System (and this Web site) includes a sample size calculator that can help you decide on the sample size (jump to the calculator page for a general discussion of sample size considerations).
Avoiding a Biased Sample:
A biased sample will produce biased results. Totally excluding all bias is almost impossible; however, if you recognize bias exist you can intuitively discount some of the answers.
The consequences of a source of bias depend on the nature of the survey. For example, a survey for a product aimed at retirees will not be as biased by daytime interviews as will a general public opinion survey. A survey about Internet products can safely ignore people who do not use the Internet.
2. Quotas:
A Quota is a sample size for a sub-group. It is sometimes useful to establish quotas to ensure that your sample accurately reflects relevant sub-groups in your target population. For example, men and women have somewhat different opinions in many areas. If you want your survey to accurately reflect the general population’s opinions, you will want to ensure that the percentage of men and women in your sample reflect their percentages of the general population.
If you are interviewing users of a particular type of product, you probably want to ensure that users of the different current brands are represented in proportions that approximate the current market share. Alternatively, you may want to ensure that you have enough users of each brand to be able to analyze the users of each brand as a separate group.
If you are doing telephone or Web page interviewing, The Survey System’s optional Sample Management or Internet Module can help you enforce quotas. They let you create automatically enforced quotas and/or monitor your sample during interviewing sessions.
3. Scanning Questionnaires:
Scanning questionnaires is a method of data collection that can be used with paper questionnaires that have been administered in face-to-face interviews; mail surveys or surveys completed by an Interviewer over the telephone.
The Survey System can produce paper questionnaires that can be scanned using Remark Office OMR (available from CRS). Other software can scan questionnaires and produce ASCII Files that can be read into the Survey System.
(a) Advantages:
Scanning can be the fastest method of data entry for paper questionnaires.
Scanning is more accurate than a person in reading a properly completed questionnaire.
(b) Disadvantages:
Scanning is best-suited to “check the box” type surveys and bar codes. Scanning programs have various methods to deal with text responses, but all require additional data entry time.
Scanning is less forgiving (accurate) than a person in reading a poorly marked questionnaire. It requires investment in additional hardware to do the actual scanning.
Summary of Survey Methods:
Your choice of survey method will depend on several factors.
These include:
i. Speed:
Email and Web page surveys are the fastest methods, followed by telephone interviewing. Mail surveys are the slowest.
ii. Cost:
Personal interviews are the most expensive followed by telephone and then mail. Email and Web page surveys are the least expensive for large samples.
iii. Internet:
Web page and Email surveys offer significant advantages, but you may not be able to.
iv. Usage:
Generalize their results to the population as a whole.
v. Literacy Levels:
Illiterate and less-educated people rarely respond to mail surveys.
vi. Sensitive:
People are more likely to answer sensitive questions when interviewed directly by
vii. Questions:
Computer in one form or another.
viii. Video:
A need to get reactions to video, music or a picture limits your options. You can play
ix. Sound:
A video on a Web page, in a computer-direct interview, or in person. You can play Graphics music when using these methods or over a telephone. You can show pictures in those first methods and in a mail survey.