Chapter 7: Survey Research & Sampling*

Question 1

Panel study or longitudinal design

Answer 1

administering survey questions to the same people at 2 or more points in time

Question 2

Response set/bias

Answer 2

a pattern or tendency of responding to questions in a certain way rather than providing answers directly related to the questions e.g. social desirability, yea-saying, nay-saying, fence-sitting

Question 3

Social desirability or “faking good”

Answer 3

an individual answers in the most socially acceptable way or the way he/she thinks most people would respond

Question 4

3 general types of content measured by survey questions

Answer 4

attitudes and beliefs, facts and demographics, behaviors

Question 5

What are some problems that can arise when writing questions?

Answer 5

unnecessary complexity, negative wording, double-barreled questions, loaded questions

Question 6

Double-barreled questions

Answer 6

questions that ask two things at once, making any one answer ambiguous and hard to interpret

Question 7

Loaded questions

Answer 7

written in such a way as to try to bias people’s response toward a particular answer

Question 8

“Yea-saying” (acquiescence) or “nay-saying” response sets

Answer 8

tendency for some survey respondents to agree (yea) or disagree (nay) with the vast majority of questions being asked regardless of question content

Question 9

Inattentive responding

Answer 9

responding to survey questions without reading the item content, providing answers that are not thoughtful

Question 10

What are the 2 main types of questions?

Answer 10

closed-ended and open-ended questions

Question 11

Closed-ended questions

Answer 11

questions that offer respondents a limited number of response options e.g. multiple choice, T/F, Likert scale

Question 12

Open-ended questions

Answer 12

questions that allow respondents to answer in any way they like with no restrictions e.g. short/long essay

Question 13

Pros and cons of open-ended questions

Answer 13

Pros: freedom for participants to respond how they like, good ecological validity; Cons: tough to quantify and code

Question 14

Pros and cons of closed-ended questions

Answer 14

Pros: easy to implement, do stats on, compare results with other similar surveys, and restricts participant responses; Cons: restricts participant responses, designing questions can be tricky

Question 15

Rating scale

Answer 15

closed-ended response question that asks participants about degrees of judgement for a dimension e.g. amount of agreement, liking, or confidence

Question 16

Graphic rating scale

Answer 16

two words appear on either side of a solid line and participants place a mark on the line indicating their relative preference for one or the other word, which is measured in term of distance from one end

Question 17

Semantic differential scale

Answer 17

two words appear on either side of a series of dashed lines and participants place a mark on the dash indicating their relative preference for one or the other word

Question 18

3 basic dimensions concepts are rated in using semantic differential scales

Answer 18

evaluation (e.g. good-bad), activity (e.g. slow-fast), potency (e.g. weak-strong)

Question 19

Non-verbal scale

Answer 19

response options are in the form of images instead of words or numbers

Question 20

What are some solutions to response set/bias?

Answer 20

use reverse-worded questions, get rid of neutral alternatives

Question 21

What can you do about question order effects?

Answer 21

insert filler questions, counterbalance the questions

Question 22

What are the 2 main ways to administer surveys?

Answer 22

questionnaires and interviews

Question 23

Interviewer bias

Answer 23

intentional or unintentional influence on a respondent by an interviewer to encourage responses consistent with the interviewer’s expectations

Question 24

Focus group

Answer 24

qualitative method of data collection where 6 to 10 people are interviewed together about a particular topic

Question 25

Population

Answer 25

group of people of interest to the researchers, from which a sample is typically drawn

Question 26

Sample

Answer 26

subset of the population

Question 27

Confidence interval

Answer 27

serves as a range of plausible values that are likely to be observed if the study were to be repeated; a quantification of our uncertainty around our estimates (wider CI = greater uncertainty)

Question 28

Sampling error

Answer 28

the degree to which the estimate based on a sample deviates from the true population value

Question 29

External validity

Answer 29

the degree to which study results based on a sample may be generalized to the population from which the sample was drawn or other populations

Question 30

Sampling frame

Answer 30

the individuals or clusters of individuals in a population who may actually be selected for inclusion in the sample

Question 31

Response rate

Answer 31

the percentage of people selected for a sample who actually complete a survey

Question 32

What are the 2 basic techniques for sampling?

Answer 32

probability sampling and non-probability sampling

Question 33

Probability sampling

Answer 33

participants are randomly drawn and each member of the population has a known and specific probability of being chosen; likely representative of population and high generalizability

Question 34

Non-probability sampling

Answer 34

participants are not drawn at random and one cannot specify the probability that any member of a population will be included; easy and convenient but low generalizability

Question 35

What are the types of probability sampling?

Answer 35

simple random sampling, stratified random sampling, and cluster sampling

Question 36

Simple random sampling

Answer 36

each member of the population has an equal probability of being included in the sample

Question 37

When is simple random sampling used?

Answer 37

when you have access to your entire population and have more or less equal representation of all groups contained in your population

Question 38

Stratified random sampling

Answer 38

the population is divided into strata or subgroups followed by random sampling from each stratum to reflect their proportions in the population

Question 39

When is stratified random sampling used?

Answer 39

when you have access to your entire population and you have unequal representation of all groups contained in your population

Question 40

Cluster sampling

Answer 40

clusters of individuals are identified, sampled, then all individuals in each cluster are included in the sample

Question 41

When is cluster sampling used?

Answer 41

when you don’t have access to your entire population

Question 42

What are the types of non-probability sampling/

Answer 42

convenience sampling, purposive sampling, quota sampling, snowball sampling

Question 43

Convenience or haphazard sampling

Answer 43

recruiting participants whenever and wherever you can on the basis of availability and without regard for the representativeness of the sample

Question 44

Purposive sampling

Answer 44

a type of convenience sampling procedure conducted to obtain only a sample of people who meet a predetermined criteria

Question 44

Purposive sampling

Answer 44

a type of convenience sampling procedure conducted to obtain only a sample of people who meet a predetermined criteria

Question 45

Quota sampling

Answer 45

the sample is chosen using convenience sampling to reflect the numerical composition of various subgroups in the population

Question 46

Snowball sampling

Answer 46

asking participants to recommend others to participate and help researchers accumulate participants