Survey design is one of the most important phases of your survey process. All your project results rely on how good is your survey. The choice of a survey design for any research project is generally a vital concern of the researcher who seeks to determine the validity of a hypothesis and how best to discover evidence to either accept or reject it. Social phenomena as well as business interactions are usually interlaced with numerous variables, and control of these variables is difficult at best. These are some of survey design used today:
Descriptive survey
Central Characteristics:
Concerned with information generally obtained by interview or mailed questionnaire. Other sources include official reports or statistics.
Requires an effort to procure 100% enumeration of the population under study.
Time series are produced showing social or behavioral changes over varying periods of time.
Prospective Outcomes:
A sizable volume of information that can be classified by type, frequency, and central tendency.
Expense of survey will be very large if population is substantial. Final yield: data that may be analyzed for numerous relationships.
Sample survey
Central Characteristics:
Deals with only fraction of a total population
Sampling methods employed to provide sample that is an accurate representation of the total population.
Test hypotheses may be established.
Prospective Outcomes:
Data may be analyzed for simple relationship between two variables. Multivariate analysis may involve factor analysis, matrix, and multiple discriminate analysis
Field studies
Central Characteristics:
Concerned primarily with processes and patterns under investigation of a single group, family, institution, or community.
Emphasis is on the social structure, i.e., interrelationship of parts of the structure and social interaction taking place.
Prospective Outcomes:
Data gathered enable many hypotheses to be tested that were not amenable to survey data
Greater control achieved by focusing on subgroup of larger population.
Sociological product such as processes, patterns, roles, and values made available.
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