Chapter 10: Introduction to Survey Methodology and Design
Prepared for the Interdisciplinary and Global Studies Division, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
By James K. Doyle
Assistant Professor
Department of Social Sciences and Policy Studies
Introduction
Research projects like the IQP that examine the interface between science and technology and society often require the collection and analysis of social data. The most common response from beginning researchers to this need for data is to conduct a survey. After all, everyone has had experience answering surveys, and it is usually a simple and straightforward procedure. Many people conclude from this experience that writing and administering their own survey will be a simple and straightforward matter as well.
However, in actuality, the intuitions people form about survey research from their own experience are often incorrect. To test your own intuitions, you might consider how you would answer the following true/false questions (answers appear at the end of the chapter just ahead of the References):
T/F 1. Determining the opinions of the population of a city of 10,000,000 people requires a much larger sample than an opinion survey of a city of 100,000 people.
T/F 2. Randomly choosing names from a telephone directory is the best way to choose a sample for a telephone survey.
T/F 3. Survey questions should appear in random order.
T/F 4. Posting a survey on a web site is a good way to reach large numbers of people and to increase sample size.
T/F 5. If too few people from the first survey sample chosen fail to respond, a second sample should be chosen to increase the number of respondents.
An understanding of the answers to these and many other questions is essential for conducting scientific surveys that yield accurate, unbiased, and generalizable results. Yet it is a rare person indeed who can explain the reasoning behind such questions correctly without having made an effort to study survey design and methodology. In fact, there really is little reason to expect success in survey research without formal study of the topic. Basic social science research methods are often more complicated, more difficult to learn, and more counterintuitive compared with basic methods in other sciences since the subjects of study, human beings, are more complicated. Atoms and chemicals, for example, don't try to figure out the goals of your research, don't have a bad day, and don't change their minds from one moment to the next!
Social scientists, by conducting countless studies and experiments over the past several decades, now have a good understanding of how to conduct a survey. From such obviously important questions as how to select a random sample to seemingly trivial details such as whether it is better to include a preprinted business reply envelope or a stamped envelope for people to use to return mail surveys, the answers are available in the published academic literature and in textbooks. There are even excellent books on the subject written especially for beginning researchers [see, e.g., Rosnow and Rosenthal (1996) and Salant and Dillman (1994)].
Thus it is now possible for students who have never conducted a survey before to learn about and implement the basic principles of scientific survey design and methodology as part of their IQP. The goal of the present work is to introduce you to these basic principles and to describe where you can go to learn more.
Maintained by webmaster@wpi.eduLast modified: June 24, 2008 15:38:35