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Survey summary
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In this document you will find a summary of all the important things mentioned during the lectures and during the working groups of the course Survey.
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Research Workshop: SurveyWeek 1 Creating questionnaire
Errors in surveys
What could possibly go wrong?
We need individuals and their answers to say something about the population. We never
ask questions to the whole population, we need a representative sample. We don’t want
random error or bias error. With random error we don’t know what individuals think but
overall we have a good approximation of the opinion. With bias error we can’t have a good
approximation of the overall opinion. With a systematic bias you know if you overestimate
or underestimate the average. The sample should give a good representative view of the
population but one source of mistakes and errors in surveys is that there is always the
chance of random error bias or systematic error bias. The other source is that when a
question is answered, but the given answer is not an accurate reflection of the true
answer. They might be randomly mistakes or they might be systematically different.
Random error Bias error (systematic)
Sample: sampling error Sample bias
Questions: invalidity Question: bias
Asking questions
Common sources of error in surveys
- A poorly worded question
- The way the question is asked by the interviewer
- Misunderstanding on the part of interviewee
- Memory problems o the part of the interviewee
- The way the information is recorded by the interviewer
- The way the information is processed, either when answers are coded or when data are
entered into the computer
Question wording
Every question should be on a level that you respondents can understand. Do
respondents have the requisite knowledge? If you want a yes/no answer, have you given
more possibilities? If questions don’t have to be complicated, don't complicate them. If it’s
not necessary to rely on the respondents memory, don't do it. First ask general questions,
then specific questions.
Don’t know or midpoints
In some situations it might be a good thing to offer the option of ‘don’t know’. You can’t
assume that the people who will say don’t know will be randomly distributed over the other
factors. It may be culturally sensitive or depending on (e.g.) level of education to say don’t
know. The same for midpoints. If you want people to make a choice leave this option out. If
you want them to only make a choice if they really can, you have to include the option.
Answer options
Nominal, ordinal, interval and ratio are measurements levels. If an answer has more than
seven answer categories and is reasonably distributed over the answer option it is ordinal
but you can treat is as interval. Sometimes answers are more specific than others. If you
get answers you have to take social desirability into account. You can make undesirable
answers less threatening. Think carefully about how to get a valid answer.
Balanced questions
1
, You want balanced question, if there is a positive side also mention negative sides and
vice versa. How you pose a question does make a difference in how people answer. You
can go for a split half. Give some people one structure and the other half another
structure of the question. When we talk about primacy people are intended to choose the
first answer category (visual). Recency is when people choose the last category (aural).
You don’t want to annoy the respondent with not giving categories but you can rotate the
answers. Then there will still be bias at individual level but not at aggregate level.
Acquiescence: you tend to agree
If people don’t have a clear opinion they choose agree over disagree, acquiescence.
Therefore, we combine positively and negatively worded items in a scale. To balance this
effect. If we exclude answer options to decrease bias you increase the validity but it is
tiresome for a respondent and a lot of work for the researcher. If you can use answer
categories then do it. Advantages of open-ended questions are; respondents answer in
their own terms, allow for new, unexpected responses and exploratory, you can generate
fixed answer questions. Disadvantages are; time-consuming for (interviewer and)
respondent, difficult to code, interviewer variation in recoding answers.
Week 2 Reaching your audience
Modes and effects
When we talk about survey modes we mean how are we contacting our respondents. The
four main modes are; phone survey, face-to-face interview, mail survey or internet
survey. Using an interviewer has some advantages; interviewer can help with complex
questions, use complex questionnaires, increase response rates, fewer missing answers
and the interviewer can take control over the conversation. Disadvantages are the costs,
people’s privacy and interviewer effects.
Survey modes
Mail survey Internet survey Phone survey Face-to-face
Cheap Cheap Expensive Even more expensive
Slow Fast Fast Slow
Simple questionnaire Complex question- Simplify questions, an- Complex questions
naire swers scales
Pictures Pictures, videos, Limited help (visual) Visual stimuli
sound
No non-response in- Limited non-response Relative high non-re- Persuade those that
formation information sponse reject
Long questionnaire Short questionnaire Short interviews Very long interviews
Coverage not a prob- Coverage can be a Coverage problematic Best possible cover-
lem problem age
Lower threat for pri- Lower threat for pri-
vacy vacy
Who answers the sur- Who answers the sur-
vey? vey?
High quality answers Meta-data available
2
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