Survey Research

Ramvie Santiago

Social Sciences

9 January 2008

Survey Research

Survey research plays an important part in our society . It gives enough information on person 's behavior , attitudes , opinions and or beliefs (Zarinpoush , 2006

It serves as enhancement to the people of the society to improve their way of living and become more productive . Moreover , it gives an opportunity for the business people to develop their services and products for the welfare of the society

Because of the continuous growth of population , the focus of the survey research is more

in demand because the needs and wants of the people are increasing . We all know that preferences of people change as well as the behavior . We always think of the right ways of improving our lifestyles and make the most of our lives better and productive

In addition to , for the past ten years of its existence , there are numerous facilities and equipments that ties up with survey research which includes the computerized kiosk , telephone surveys and a lot more (Williams , 2006

There are two categories that comprise the survey research . They are the

Quantitative and the qualitative surveys which are mainly known as the questionnaires

and the interview respectively . According to William (2006 , it is sometimes hard

to differentiate the questionnaire from an interview because some people believe that

questionnaire requires short closed ended questions while interviews require broad open-

ended questions

The quantitative research is wide and more often used in social sciences . It is an integrated process wherein theories , hypothesis and evidences are assessed properly (Wikipedia , 2007

One method of quantitative type is the mail survey . It is one of the inexpensive ways of research . You can actually send one type of questionnaires to a broad number of people where those are allowed to answer in any possible time or the time the respondent is available However , according to the surveys , the rate of the responses is very low which emphasizes that there are many methods that are effective . Another method is the group administered questionnaire wherein questions are distributed in group collaboration . In this method , you are very sure that all questionnaires will be answered and returned back with answers Obviously , answered questionnaires are on a high rate because if the questions are unclear , there are instances that they can ask the person conducting the collaboration or group meetings (William , 2006

To differentiate a group administered questionnaire to a group interview , the group questionnaire are given an instrument which are the and ball pen where as the group interview , the interviewer is the one conducting the session . It gives the opportunity for the attendees to answer the question fast and comment on it (William , 2006

Another method in Quantitative survey is the drop off household survey in which the interviewer personally go to the respondent 's place to give the instrument which is a where the questions to be answered is written .In some cases , researchers are instructing them to mail it back , but some...