Ch. 7 - Survey Research

Question 1

Panel study (AKA longitudinal design)

Answer 1

• When the same people are tracked and surveyed at 2 or more points in time
• “Two-wave” panel study = people surveyed at 2 points in time
• “Three-wave” panel study = people surveyed at 3 points in time

Question 2

Response set

Answer 2

• Is a tendency to respond to all questions from a particular perspective rather than to provide answers that are directly related to the questions
• Example response set is “social desirability”, answering in the way that they think most people would respond or will make them look good

Question 3

What are the 3 general types of survey questions?

Answer 3

1. Attitudes and Beliefs - Focuses on the way people evaluate, feel, and think about issues
2. Facts & Demographics - Ask people to indicate things they know about themselves and their situation
3. Behaviours - Focus on past behaviours or intended future behaviours

Question 4

Difficulties understanding survey questions can include…

Answer 4

• unfamiliar terms
• vague or imprecise terms
• ungrammatical sentence structure
• phrasing that overloads working memory
• embedding the question with misleading information

Question 5

Things to avoid when creating survey questions…

Answer 5

1. Unnecessary complexity - avoid jargon and technical terms that people won’t understand
2. Double-barrelled questions - avoid questions that ask two things at once
3. Loaded questions - is written to lead people to respond in one way
4. Negative wording - avoid phrasing questions with negatives
5. “Yes-saying” or “nay-saying” response set - When you ask several questions about a topic, a respondent may either agree (yea) or disagree (nay) with all the questions

Question 6

Rating scales

Answer 6

-Ask people to provide “how much” judgements on any number of dimensions

Question 7

Graphic rating scale

Answer 7

• Requires a mark along a continuous 100mm line that is anchored with descriptions at each end
• The researcher uses a ruler to measure the score on a scale that ranges from 0 to 100

Question 8

Semantic differential scale

Answer 8

• Is a way to measure the meaning that people ascribe to concepts
• Respondents rate any concept on a series of bipolar adjectives using 7-point scales
• Rated along 3 basic dimensions: evaluation, activity, potency

Question 9

Non-verbal scale

Answer 9

• In some circumstances, researchers might want to offer images instead of words or numbers
• Example, for young children you may use sad to smiling faces

Question 10

What are the 2 ways to administer surveys?

Answer 10

1. Questionnaire format

2. Verbal format

Question 11

Pros and cons of questionnaires

Answer 11

Pros:

• Inexpensive
• Allow respondent to be completely anonymous

Cons:

• Requires respondents to be motivated and attentive enough to complete them
• Some respondents may have difficulty reading and understanding the questions

Question 12

Interviewer bias

Answer 12

Biases that can arise from the fact that the interviewer is a person interacting with another person. Examples are:

• The interviewer could subtly influence the respondent’s answers by inadvertently showing approval or disapproval of certain answers
• Personal characteristics of the interviewer (ex. attractiveness, age, or race) might influence the answers
• Interviewer may have expectations that could lead them to “see what they are looking for” in respondent’s answers. Which could potentially bias their interpretations of responses

Question 13

3 methods for conducting interviews

Answer 13

1. Face to face - The interviewer and respondent meet to conduct the interview. Expensive and time consuming. Mostly used for small sample size
2. Telephone interviews - For large-scale surveys, completed by phone or by skype. Less expensive and data can be collected relatively quickly
3. Focus group interviews - An interview with a group of about 6-10 people that are brought together for a period of usually 2-3 hours. Members are often selected because they have particular knowledge or interest in the topic. Questions tend to be open-ended.

Question 14

Population

Answer 14

-Is a set of people of interest to the researcher

Question 15

Sampling

Answer 15

• Researchers typically collect data on a sample to learn something about a larger population.
• With proper sampling, we can use information obtained from the respondent’s who were sampled to estimate characteristics of the population as a whole.

Question 16

Confidence interval

Answer 16

• A range of plausible values for the population value; values outside the confidence interval are implausible
• Narrower confidence intervals indicate more precise estimates with less sampling error
• Larger sample sizes reduce measurement error, and therefore reduce the size of the confidence interval

Question 17

External validity

Answer 17

• In the survey context, achieving external validity means ensuring that the sample is highly representative of the population from which it is drawn
• First, you would RANDOM SAMPLE from a population that contains ALL people in the population of interest

Question 18

Sampling frame

Answer 18

-Is the ACTUAL population of people from which a random sample will be drawn

Question 19

Response rate

Answer 19

-The response rate in a survey is the percentage of people in the sample who actually completed the survey

Question 20

2 techniques for sampling individuals from a population?

Answer 20

1. Probability sampling - each member of the population has a specifiable probability of being chosen. Is important when you want to make PRECISE statements about a specific population based on your survey results
2. Non-probability sampling - we don’t know the probability of any particular member of the population being chosen

Question 21

Simple random sampling

Answer 21

• Every member of the population has an equal probability of being selected for the sample
• Whenever people are randomly selected from a specific population to participate in a study, the resulting sample is called a RANDOM SAMPLE

Question 22

Stratified random sampling

Answer 22

-The population is divided into subgroups (or strata), and then simple random sampling is used to select sample members from each stratum.

Question 23

Cluster sampling

Answer 23

• Rather than randomly sampling from a list of people, the researcher can identify “clusters” of people and then sample from these clusters
• After the clusters are chosen, all people in each cluster are included in the sample
• Most often, use of cluster sampling requires a series of samples from larger to smaller clusters, ie. a “multistage” approach

Question 24

3 types of probability sampling

Answer 24

1. Simple random sampling
2. Stratified random sampling
3. Cluster sampling

Question 25

3 types of non-probability sampling

Answer 25

1. Convenience sampling
2. Purposive sampling
3. Quota sampling

Question 26

Convenience sampling (AKA haphazard sampling)

Answer 26

• Participants are recruited wherever you can find them
• Such procedures are likely to introduce bias into the sample so that the sample may not accurately reflect the population

Question 27

Purposive sampling

Answer 27

-The “purpose” is to obtain a sample of people who meet some predetermined criterion

Question 28

Quota sampling

Answer 28

• A researcher who uses this technique chooses a sample that reflects the numerical composition of various subgroups in the population
• Thus, quot sampling is similar to the stratified sampling procedure, but without the randomness

Question 29

Survey research

Answer 29

-Uses questionnaires and interviews to ask people to provide information about themselves - their attitudes, beliefs, demographics, and other facts, as well as past or intended future events