Ray Block, Jr.
PS 585
Research Methods

Today’s Blueprint
Last Class

• Analyzing Records:
• What are records?
• What types of records do researchers analyze?
• How do researchers analyze records?

• Survey Research:
• Interviews
• Surveys
• Defining them
• Why we use them
• How to do them
• Strengths and Weaknesses

Survey Research

• The basic idea behind survey research:
• Measure variables by asking people questions
• Examine relationships among the variables

Two Major Survey Research Approaches:

1. Ask people questions via Interviewing
2. Ask people questions via Surveys

What are they?

• Asks respondents questions:
• Face-to-face
• In an non-standard, individualized manner

• Obtain large amounts of information from limited numbers of people, usually through non-random sampling

• As preliminary or exploratory research
• As a supplement other methods
• As a self-contained means of collecting data

1. Range
2. Specificity
3. Depth
4. Content

• The interview data should be wide-ranging rather than narrowly restricted
• Should cover a maximum range of relevant topics

• Interviews should provide data that is highly specific and not general or diffuse
• However, gaining specific data does not mean “pigeonholing” discussion

• Interviewers should explore the participants’ feelings in some depth
• Researchers want to know:
• What the topic means to the participant
• How much the participant is/was involved in the topic

• Interviews should take into account the personal context that participants use when they give their responses to the topic
• Personal context = respondent's the attributes, prior experiences, etc.

• Elite: Ask special people
• Personal: Ask everyday people
• Focused: Ask groups of people

• Strength of interviews = weakness of focus groups and vice-versa
• Neither approach can replace the other
• Both approaches complement each other

What are they?
Procedure for systematically collecting information about:

• Attitudes
• Preferences
• Knowledge
• Behavior

• Obtain limited amounts of information from a large number of people, usually through random sampling

• The answers provide information about the group(s) that those people represent

• Some issues to consider:
• Choosing a design
• Developing survey questions
• Administering the survey

• Cross-sectional
• One or more samples tested @ one time
• Successive independent samples
• Different samples tested @ different times
• Longitudinal
• Same sample @ different times
• Can you use an existing questionnaire?
• Doing so makes your results comparable to existing results
• If you have to design your own, ask:
• What do you want to accomplish with your questionnaire?

• Open-ended
• Closed-ended

• Avoid double-barreled questions
• Ex) “Are you a republican? If so, do you like Arnold Schwarzenegger?

• Ex) If Topic = Abortion:
• Good: Do you believe abortion should be legal or illegal?
• Bad: Do you believe in killing unborn kids?
• Also bad: should women be forced to bear unwanted babies?
• Be wary of social desirability effects
• Be wary of question order effects

• By phone
• Face-to-Face
• By mail
• Via the Internet

Strengths

• Cheap (relatively)
• Practical
• Representative

• Response style/set (habitual way of answering)
• Response acquiescence (yea-saying)
• Response deviation (nay-saying)
• Social desirability

References (FYI):

• Morgan, David and Richard A. Krueger. 1997. The Focus Group Kit. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications
• Babbie, Earl. 1973. Survey Research Methods. Balmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing.
• Neuman, Lawrence. 2003. Social Science Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.