Chapter 7 - Survey Research Flashcards
Survey Research
A quantitative and qualitative method with two important characteristics; variables are measured using self-reports and considerable attention is paid to the issue of sampling
Survey research requires what kind of samples?
Large, random samples
Order of steps in the cognitive model ofsurvey response:
- Interpret the question
- Retrieve information
- Form a judment
- Format a response (pick a response)
- Edit a response (if necessary)
Context effects
Unintended influences on respondents’ answers because they are not related to the content of the item but to the context in which the item appears.
Open ended questions
Open-ended items are useful when researchers do not know how participants might respond or when they want to avoid influencing their responses. Open-ended items are more qualitative in nature, so they tend to be used when researchers have more vaguely defined research questions—often in the early stages of a research project. Open-ended items are relatively easy to write because there are no response options to worry about. However, they take more time and effort on the part of participants, and they are more difficult for the researcher to analyze because the answers must be transcribed, coded, and submitted to some form ofqualitative analysis, such ascontent analysis.Another disadvantage is that respondents are more likely to skip open-ended items because they take longer to answer. It is best to use open-ended questions when the answer is unsure or for quantities which can easily be converted to categories later in the analysis.
What is a double-barreled question?
A question that asks about more than one topic.
every survey should have a ____ or ____ introduction that serves two basic functions (Peterson, 2000)[10].One is to encourage respondents to participate in the survey.
The second function of the introduction is to establish ____ _____. Remember that this involves describing to respondents everything that might affect their decision to participate. This includes the topics covered by the survey, the amount of time it is likely to take, the respondent’s option to withdraw at any time, confidentiality issues, and so on. Written consent forms are not always used in survey research (when the research is of minimal risk and completion of the survey instrument is often accepted by the IRB as evidence of consent to participate), so it is important that this part of the introduction be well documented and presented clearly and in its entirety to every respondent.
written, spoken
Informed consent
3 Purpose of introduction:
- Encourage participants to participate.
- Provide informed consent
- Give clear instructions for survey
Every survey should be ended with an?
expression of appreciation to the respondent
Sampling Bias
Occurs when a sample is selected in such a way that it is not representative of the entire population and therefore produces inaccurate results.
Non-response bias
Occurs when there is a systemic difference between survey non-responders from survey responders
The 4 ways to conduct a survey:
- IN-person
- Internet
- Telephone
In-person interviews
In-person interviews have the highest response rates and provide the closest personal contact with respondents. Personal contact can be important, for example, when the interviewer must see and make judgments about respondents, as is the case with some mental health interviews. But in-person interviewing is by far the most costly approach.
Telephone Surveys
Telephone surveys have lower response rates and still provide some personal contact with respondents. They can also be costly but are generally less so than in-person interviews. Traditionally, telephone directories have provided fairly comprehensive sampling frames.However, this trend is less true today as more people choose to only have cell phones and do not install land lines that would be included in telephone directories.
Mail surveys
Mail surveys are less costly still but generally have even lower response rates—making them most susceptible to non-response bias.
INternet surveys
Not surprisingly, internet surveys are becoming more common. They are increasingly easy to construct and use (see “Online Survey Creation”). Although initial contact can be made by mail with a link provided to the survey, this approach does not necessarily produce higher response rates than an ordinary mail survey. A better approach is to make initial contact by email with a link directly to the survey. Thisapproachcan work well when the population consists of the members of an organization who have known email addresses and regularly use them (e.g., a university community). For other populations, it can be difficult or impossible to find a comprehensive list of email addresses to serve as a sampling frame. Alternatively, a request to participate in the survey with a link to it can be posted on websites known to be visited by members of the population. But again it is very difficult to get anything approaching a random sample this way because the members of the population who visit the websites are likely to be different from the population as a whole. However, internet survey methods are in rapid development. Because of their low cost, and because more people are online than ever before, internet surveys are likely to become the dominant approach to survey data collection in the near future.
Preconception: INternet samples are not deographically Diverse
Internet samples are more diverse than traditional samples in many domains, although they are not completely representative of the population
Preconception: Internet samples are maladjusted, socially isolated, or depressed
Finding: Internet users do not differs from nonusers on markers of adjustment and depression
Preconception: Internet-based findings differ from those obtained with other methods
Evidence so far suggests that internet-based findings are consistent with findings based on traditional methods (e.g., on self-esteem, personality), but more data are needed.
Between-subjects experiment
In abetween-subjectsexperiment, each participant is tested in only one condition.
Random assignment vs. Random sampling
The primary way that researchers accomplish this kind of control of extraneous variables across conditions is calledrandomassignment, which means using a random process to decide which participants are tested in which conditions. Do not confuse random assignment with random sampling. Random sampling is a method for selecting a sample from a population, and it is rarely used in psychological research. Random assignment is a method for assigning participants in a sample to the different conditions, and it is an important element of all experimental research in psychology and other fields too.
The problem with random assignment and a solution
The problem with coin flipping and other strict procedures for random assignment is that they are likely to result in unequal sample sizes in the different conditions. Unequal sample sizes are generally not a serious problem, and you should never throw away data you have already collected to achieve equal sample sizes. However, for a fixed number of participants, it is statistically most efficient to divide them into equal-sized groups. It is standard practice, therefore, to use a kind of modified random assignment that keeps the number of participants in each group as similar as possible. One approach isblockrandomization. In block randomization, all the conditions occur once in the sequence before any of them is repeated. Then they all occur again before any of them is repeated again. Within each of these “blocks,” the conditions occur in a random order. Again, the sequence of conditions is usually generated before any participants are tested, and each new participant is assigned to the next condition in the sequence.
Matched-group designs
An experiment design in which the participants in the various conditions are matched on the dependent variable or onsome extraneous variable(s) prior the manipulation of the independent variable.
Within-subjects experiment
In awithin-subjectsexperiment, each participant is tested under all conditions.
Carryover effect, practice effect, fatigue effect, context effect
Acarryovereffectis an effect of being tested in one condition on participants’ behavior in later conditions. One type of carryover effect is apracticeeffect, where participants perform a task better in later conditions because they have had a chance to practice it. Another type is afatigueeffect, where participants perform a task worse in later conditions because they become tired or bored. Being tested in one condition can also change how participants perceive stimuli or interpret their task in later conditions. Thistype of effect iscalled acontexteffect (or contrast effect).
COunterbalancing and complete counterbalancing
There is a solution to the problem of order effects, however, that can be used in many situations. It iscounterbalancing, which means testing different participants in different orders. The best method of counterbalancing iscomplete counterbalancingin which an equal number of participants complete each possible order of conditions.
Pro con of random counterbalancing
Finally, when the number of conditions is large experiments can userandom counterbalancingin which the order of the conditions is randomly determined for each participant. Using this technique every possible order of conditions is determined and then one of these orders is randomly selected for each participant. This is not as powerful a technique as complete counterbalancing or partial counterbalancing using a Latin squares design. Use of random counterbalancing will result in more random error, but if order effects are likely to be small and the number of conditions is large, this is an option available to researchers.
