Title: Summary
Course: UGQuants (SSPS) > Section: Survey Design

Conclusions

We have considered how we might define a survey, the strengths and weaknesses of survey data, and different types of surveys and their place in a larger research design. We have also seen the wide range of topics which survey data can help us explore and considered the use of secondary analysis with existing survey data.

We have discussed a number of different methods we could use to obtain our sample each with its own advantages and disadvantages. The decision on which sampling method to use is influenced by a number of matters, including availability of resources, the nature of the population of interest, the research topic, and the aims and objectives of the study.

There are a number of methods of survey administration, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. The decision on how to collect our data requires careful consideration of a number of issues including survey administration and resources, questionnaire design and data quality.

The development of our survey instrument involves consideration of a number of issues including operationalisation of concepts, principles of questionnaire design, question content, questionnaire structure, and pre-testing and piloting.

Cognitive interviewing as a means of improving the accuracy and quality of our survey instrument. We have seen that cognitive interviewing is concerned with four key processes; how respondents understand the survey question, how they recall information applicable to the question, the judgements they make as to what information to use when formulating their answer and how they respond to the question. We have considered the two key methods of cognitive interviewing – think-aloud interviews and verbal probe interviews – and discussed the associated advantages and disadvantages of both methods.

Finally, have considered the process of converting our survey responses from words to numbers, known as data coding. We have considered the basic principles of coding, the broad types of coding – namely pre and post coding  – and specific instances of coding such as coding multiple responses, numerical data and missing data. Finally, we considered the requirement to document our coding scheme in a codebook to enable other researchers to subsequently analyse our data.