{"id":241,"date":"2021-09-28T13:41:40","date_gmt":"2021-09-28T17:41:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/researchmethods-fall2021\/?p=241"},"modified":"2021-09-28T13:41:40","modified_gmt":"2021-09-28T17:41:40","slug":"summary-of-chapter-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/researchmethods-fall2021\/2021\/09\/28\/summary-of-chapter-9\/","title":{"rendered":"Summary of Chapter 9"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Survey Research:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Survey research is a research<strong> method <\/strong>which uses \u201cstandardized questions or interviews to collect data about people and their preferences, thoughts and behavior in a systematic manner\u201d. This method has become very popular for quantitative research in social science.<\/p>\n<p>Typically best for-<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Descriptive, exploratory, or explanatory research<\/li>\n<li>Studies that have individual people as the <strong>units of analysis<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Strengths:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Useful for measuring a wide variety of unobservable data\n<ul>\n<li>Preferences, traits, attitudes, beliefs, behaviors<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Collecting data from a population that is too large to observe directly<\/li>\n<li>Convenient and preferred by some respondents<\/li>\n<li>Interviews may be the only way to reach a certain population\n<ul>\n<li>Homeless, illegal immigrants<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Large sample surveys can detect small effects and allow comparative analysis of population subgroups<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Weaknesses:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Subject to bias responses\n<ul>\n<li>Non-response, sampling bias, social desirability bias, and recall bias<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-242 aligncenter\" style=\"font-size: 1rem\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/researchmethods-fall2021\/files\/2021\/09\/Screen-Shot-2021-09-28-at-1.31.31-PM-300x151.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"344\" height=\"173\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/researchmethods-fall2021\/files\/2021\/09\/Screen-Shot-2021-09-28-at-1.31.31-PM-300x151.png 300w, https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/researchmethods-fall2021\/files\/2021\/09\/Screen-Shot-2021-09-28-at-1.31.31-PM.png 339w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 344px) 100vw, 344px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong><u>Questionnaire Surveys: <\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Set of questions (items) intended to capture responses from respondent in a standardized manner<\/li>\n<li><strong>Unstructured v. structured<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Unstructured: Respondents provide a response in their own words<\/li>\n<li>Structured: Respondents select an answer from a set of choices<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Self-administered mail surveys<\/strong>&#8211; Questionnaire is mailed to a large number of people, willing respondents complete the survey and return it via prepaid envelopes\n<ul>\n<li>Pros: unobtrusive, inexpensive<\/li>\n<li>Cons: slow response rates, people tend to ignore survey requests<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Group-administered questionnaires<\/strong>&#8211; A sample of respondents are brought together and each respondent is asked to answer the survey while in that room without interacting\n<ul>\n<li>Pros: high response rate, can ask clarification questions<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Online or web survey<\/strong>&#8211; Administered over the internet, respondents may receive an email with a survey link where survey can be completed.\n<ul>\n<li>Pros: inexpensive, results are instantly recorded, surveys can be easily modified<\/li>\n<li>Cons: If website is not password-protected then answers can be compromised, can\u2019t reach people without a computer<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Response formats:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Dichotomous response-<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Yes\/no, true\/false, agree\/disagree<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Nominal response-<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Presented with more than two unordered options\n<ul>\n<li>Example: What is your industry of employment: manufacturing \/ consumer services \/ retail \/ education \/ healthcare \/ tourism &amp; hospitality \/ other.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Ordinal response \u2013<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Presented with more than two ordered options\n<ul>\n<li>Example: what is your highest level of education: high school \/ college degree \/ graduate studies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Interval response-<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Presented with a 5-point or 7- point Likert scale, semantic differential scale, or Guttman scale<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Respondents enter a continuous (ratio-scaled) value with a meaningful zero point\n<ul>\n<li>Tend to be fill-in-the blanks type<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Questions content and wording:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Is the question clear and understandable?<\/li>\n<li>Is the question worded in a negative manner?<\/li>\n<li>Is the question ambiguous?<\/li>\n<li>Is the question biased?<\/li>\n<li>Is the question double-barreled (multiple answers)?<\/li>\n<li>Is the question too general?<\/li>\n<li>Is the question too detailed?<\/li>\n<li>Is the question presumptuous?<\/li>\n<li>Is the question imaginary?\n<ul>\n<li>Elicit imaginary answers (bad)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Do respondents have enough information?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Question Sequencing:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Questions should flow logically<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Other important rules: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Keep the survey as short as possible<\/li>\n<li>Confidentiality<\/li>\n<li>Have respondents send you a copy of results<\/li>\n<li>Thank respondents<\/li>\n<li>Pretest your questionnaire before administering it in a field setting<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong><u>Interview Surveys:<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Personalized form of data collection conducted by trained interviewers using the same research protocol as questionnaire surveys.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Face-to-face interview<\/strong>&#8211; Interviewer works directly with the respondent to ask questions and record their responses\n<ul>\n<li>Pro: Some feel more comfortable in a one on one setting<\/li>\n<li>Cons: Some may feel uncomfortable<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Focus group<\/strong>&#8211; A small group of respondents are interviewed together in a common location\n<ul>\n<li>Pros: Allow deep examination<\/li>\n<li>Cons: Can be dominated by a dominant personality, some may be reluctant to share their opinion in a group setting.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Telephone interviews<\/strong>&#8211; Interviewers conduct interviews over the phone, typically based on a random selection of people\n<ul>\n<li>Pros: High response rates<\/li>\n<li>Cons: Not ideal for rural areas where telephone density is low<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Role of interviewer:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Prepare for the interview<\/li>\n<li>Locate and enlist the respondents<\/li>\n<li>Motivate respondents<\/li>\n<li>Clarify confusion or concerns<\/li>\n<li>Observe quality of response<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Conduction the interview:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>How to probe the respondent\n<ul>\n<li>The silent probe- pause and wait<\/li>\n<li>Overt encouragement- Occasional \u201cuh-huh\u201d or \u201cokay\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Ask for elaboration<\/li>\n<li>Reflection- Repeat what respondent said and then pause and wait for the respondent to elaborate<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Biases in Survey Research:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Non-response bias-<\/strong> If the majority of respondents fail to respond then a concern is whether respondents are not responding due to a systematic reason\n<ul>\n<li>To improve rates of responses:\n<ul>\n<li><em>Advance notification-<\/em>\u00a0Confirming participation in survey<\/li>\n<li><em>Relevance of context-<\/em> If it&#8217;s important to the respondent they are more likely to answer<\/li>\n<li><em>Respondent-friendly<\/em>&#8211; Shorter survey, clear questions, etc.<\/li>\n<li><em>Endorsement<\/em>-Senior- Executive attests to the importance of the study<\/li>\n<li><em>Follow-up request<\/em>&#8211; May encourage non-respondents to respond<\/li>\n<li><em>Interviewer training- <\/em>Response rates can be improved with skilled interviewers<\/li>\n<li><em>Incentives-<\/em> Incentivize respondents to respond<\/li>\n<li><em>Non-monetary incentives<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Confidentiality and privacy <\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Sampling bias- <\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Interviewing people over the phone only targets those with phones, online surveys target those with computers.<\/li>\n<li>Sampling the wrong population<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Social desirability bias- <\/strong>Respondents tend to avoid negative opinions or embarrassing comments about themselves or their social circles.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Recall bias-<\/strong> When responding about event that happened in the distant past, respondent might not be able to accurately respond about their motivation or behaviors.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Common method bias-<\/strong>\u00a0When the phenomenon under investigation is not effectively separated from measurement artifacts.\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 1rem\">Often referring to the covariance shared between independent and dependent variable<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Survey Research:\u00a0 Survey research is a research method which uses \u201cstandardized questions or interviews to collect data about people and their preferences, thoughts and behavior in a systematic manner\u201d. This method has become very popular for quantitative research in social science. Typically best for- Descriptive, exploratory, or explanatory research Studies that have individual people as the units of analysis Strengths:&#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/researchmethods-fall2021\/2021\/09\/28\/summary-of-chapter-9\/\">Read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5242,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177784],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chapter-summary"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/researchmethods-fall2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/researchmethods-fall2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/researchmethods-fall2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/researchmethods-fall2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5242"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/researchmethods-fall2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/researchmethods-fall2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":243,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/researchmethods-fall2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241\/revisions\/243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/researchmethods-fall2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/researchmethods-fall2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/researchmethods-fall2021\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}