Title: The place of surveys in research design
Course: UGQuants (SSPS) > Section: Survey Design

The place of surveys in research design

We have considered the key forms of research design in survey research but how do surveys fit within larger research designs? Surveys can stand alone and be the only research strategy within a research design. Alternatively, they can sit in a broader research design in two key ways. In the first instance, a survey may follow a phase of qualitative research which can serve to raise significant issues to be explored in the survey and provide the basis for question development. Alternatively, a survey may be followed by a qualitative research phase which seeks to explore particular findings and points of interest in greater depth. The use of surveys in this way as part of a larger mixed methods research design can help to alleviate the weaknesses of survey data which we considered.