The Survey Research

This presentation has adapted material from

. www.socialresearchmethods.com
 Survey Research: Definition
A survey is a form of descriptive research
that uncovers characteristics of a
.population through the study of a sample

They are mostly conducted using

.questionnaires, interviews or polls
 Survey Research: Purposes
Surveys are used to gather demographic
information about a population.

Ex: A survey may be conducted to reveal if

facilitating the bureaucratic process in obtaining
an Egyptian voter ID would encourage more
people to vote in elections.
 Types of Surveys
• Questionnaire:
mail survey
group administered questionnaire
household drop-off
• Interview
personal interview
telephone interview
 Sampling Terminology
• The group you wish to generalize to is
often called the population in your study.
• The theoretical population, which
includes everyone in your population can
be differentiated from your accessible
population, which includes the population
you can actually study.
• A sampling frame is a list of everyone in
your accessible population.
 Sampling Terminology
• A sample is the group of people that you
choose to include in your study.

• A bias is a systematic error that occurs

when conclusions are drawn based upon
a non-representative population.
 Selecting the Survey Method

• Population issues
Can the population be enumerated?
Is the population literate?
Are there language issues?
Will the population cooperate?
What are the geographic restrictions?
 Selecting the Survey Method

• Sampling issues
What data is available on the sampling frame?
Are there lists, directories…etc?
Can respondents be found?
Who are the respondents? Are they volunteers
or not?
Is the sample representative of the sampling
frame?
Are response rates likely to be a problem?
 Types of Samples
• Probability sampling: A sample in which
each element has a known probability of
being selected.
• Non-probability sampling: The sample
differs systematically from the population.
• Simple Random Sampling: The sample
from which selections are made has the
same characteristics as the population.
 Types of Samples
• Stratified sampling: population is divided
into groups and a sample is drawn from
each group.

• Sample of convenience: persons are

selected because of their accessibility.

• Volunteer sample: persons volunteer to

participate in the study
N.B. Both convenience and volunteer samples are non-
probability samples.
 Constructing a Survey
• Step One: Determining the Type of
Questions.
Questions may be structured
1. dichotomous (yes/no, true/false,
agree/disagree) questions.
2. rank questions where participate
order elements according to preference.
 Constructing a Survey
3. interval questions where participants
choose a degree of response from
strongly agree to strongly disagree or rate
their response from 1-9.
4. contingency questions where an initial
question is asked to determine which
other questions participants should
answer.
 Constructing a Survey
.Your questions may be unstructured as well

This may be better for content but much

.harder to draw simple conclusions from
 Assessing Survey Questions
Step Two: Assessing your
questions.
• Is the Question Necessary/Useful?
• Are Several Questions Needed?
• Do Respondents Have the Needed Information?
• Does the Question Need to be More Specific?
• Is Question Sufficiently General?
• Is Question Biased or Loaded?
• Will Respondent Answer Truthfully?
 Data Analyses
Step Three: Reporting and
analyzing data.
Data will be reported using either
• Descriptive analysis: results are
presented in frequencies, percentages,
averages, standard deviations or other
statistics.
• Correlational analysis: relationships
between variables take precedence.
 Evaluating a Survey
• What is the research question?
• In what context was the survey
conducted?
• How was the population defined?
• How representative is the sample?
 Evaluating a Survey
• How were the variables observed or
measured?
• Were the results biased? Was there
nonresponse bias?
• Are generalizations about results
appropriate?
• What is the significance of this study?