Key Takeaways

• Strengths of survey research include its cost effectiveness, generalizability, reliability, and versatility.
• Weaknesses of survey research include inflexibility and issues with validity.
• Brainstorming and consulting the literature are two important early steps to take when preparing to write effective survey questions.
• Time is a factor in determining what type of survey researcher administers; cross-sectional surveys are administered at one time, and longitudinal surveys are administered over time.
• Retrospective surveys offer some of the benefits of longitudinal research but also come with their own drawbacks.
• Self-administered questionnaires may be delivered in hard copy form to participants in person or via snail mail or online.
• Make sure that your survey questions will be relevant to all respondents and that you use filter questions when necessary.
• Getting feedback on your survey questions is a crucial step in the process of designing a survey.
• When it comes to creating response options, the solution to the problem of fence-sitting might cause floating, whereas the solution to the problem of floating might cause fence sitting.
• Pretesting is an important step for improving one’s survey before actually administering it.
• While survey researchers should always aim to obtain the highest response rate possible, some recent research argues that high return rates on surveys may be less important than we once thought.

Exercises

• What are some ways that survey researchers might overcome the weaknesses of this method?
• Find an article reporting results from survey research (remember how to use Sociological Abstracts?). How do the authors describe the strengths and weaknesses of their study? Are any of the strengths or weaknesses described here mentioned in the article?
• Recall some of the possible research questions you came up with while reading previous chapters of this text. How might you frame those questions so that they could be answered using survey research?
• Do a little Internet research to find out what a Likert scale is and when you may use one.
• Write a closed-ended question that follows the guidelines for good survey question construction. Have a peer in the class check your work (you can do the same for him or her!).
• If the idea of a panel study piqued your interest, check out the Up series of documentary films. While not a survey, the films offer one example of a panel study. Filmmakers began filming the lives of 14 British children in 1964, when the children were 7 years old. They have since caught up with the children every 7 years. In 2012, the eighth installment of the documentary, 56 Up, will come out. Many clips from the series are available on YouTube.
• For more information about online delivery of surveys, check out SurveyMonkey’s website: https://www.surveymonkey.com.

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