© 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 1 Chapter 9 Surveys, Questionnaires, and Polls Most commonly used quantitative method –Used for obtaining information about what people do, and respondents’ attitudes or characteristics –In experimental, quasi-experimental, and descriptive research designs

© 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 2 What is a Survey? System for collecting comparable information across many people –Paper-and-pencil self-administered or self- reports –Face-to-face –Telephone –Mail –Computer-assisted

© 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 3 Designing a Survey Develop the research design Evaluate existing questionnaires/surveys –Recommended over creating your own –Has undergone extensive testing and revision –Minor changes are okay; substantial changes will require that you pretest or pilot test the questionnaire

© 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 4 Writing Your Own Questionnaire Start with literature review Designing survey items –Straightforward –One complete thought written in sentence or question format –Respondent should know how to answer –Avoid abbreviations and slang expressions –Shorter items are better than long ones

© 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 5 Open Questions Respondents use their own words to respond –Makes data less comparable and more difficult to interpret Consider what constitutes an adequate answer –Build that request into the question Use a recall cue to draw participants’ attention to issue, topic, or timeframe Record everything participant says Code responses after all data are collected

© 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 6 Closed Questions Respondents given a question or statement and given a set of responses to select from –All responses must be known in advance –Creates easily comparable responses Use a recall cue or stimulus statement to draw participants’ attention to issue, topic, or timeframe

© 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 7 Response Sets for Closed Questions Nominal or categorical responses –Exhaustive –Mutually exclusive –Equivalent Likert-type scales –5- or 7-point scale –Includes middle or neutral response Semantic differential scales –Bipolar adjectives anchor 7-point scale

© 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 8 Examples of Response Sets for Likert-Type Scales Very often Fairly often OccasionallyRarelyNever Verypositive Generally positive Mixed Generally negative Very negative Completely agree Generally agree Unsure Generally disagree Completely disagree Strongly agree AgreeUnsureDisagree Strongly disagree

© 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 9 Pretesting the Survey or Questionnaire Also called pilot testing Should be done if you developed a questionnaire or modified an existing one Four approaches –Cognitive approach –Conventional –Behavior coding –Expert panel

© 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 10 Sampling Issues for Surveys Sample size and response rate are not the same –Response rate or return rate = number of people who provide usable responses after being asked to participate Acceptable response rates vary by survey technique –May be differences in those who choose to respond and those that don’t respond –Unusable responses

© 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 11 Survey Reliability and Validity Internal reliability must be computed for multiple item questionnaires –Cronbach’s alpha Varies from 0 to 1.00 Generally.70 considered acceptable Three types of validity should be considered –Content validity –Face validity –Construct validity

© 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 12 Analyzing Survey Data Data of all participants combined to create a picture of the whole Often limited to descriptive purposes Data can test existing models Data from closed questions –Descriptive statistics Data from open questions –Categorized or content analyzed