A single survey is made of at least a sample (or full population in the case of a census), a method of data collection (e.g., a questionnaire) and individual questions or items that become data that can be analyzed statistically. A single survey may focus on different types of topics such as preferences (e.g., for a presidential candidate), opinions (e.g., should abortion be legal?), behavior (smoking and alcohol use), or factual information (e.g., income), depending on its purpose. Since survey research is almost always based on a sample of the population, the success of the research is dependent on the representativeness of the sample with respect to a target population of interest to the researcher. That target population can range from the general population of a given country to specific groups of people within that country, to a membership list of a professional organization, or list of students enrolled in a school system (see also sampling (statistics) and survey sampling). The persons replying to a survey are called respondents, and depending on the questions asked their answers may represent themselves as individuals, their households, employers, or other organization they represent. Text adapted from Wikipedia.
The resources below have been curated by the E-International Relations team. You can find more resources on our methods homepage.
Methods of collecting survey data by Elon University (YouTube)
Writing Good Survey Questions – Statistics Help (YouTube)
Developing Questionnaires By Nestor Matthews (YouTube)
A survey in 10 steps – Elon University (YouTube)
Websites
Face-To-Face Surveys. https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/survey-types/face-to-face-interviews
Face-to-Face Surveys by GESIS Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences. https://www.gesis.org/en/gesis-survey-guidelines/operations/face-to-face-surveys
Attention Check Questions: Yay or Nay for Surveys? (Nemanja Jovancic). https://www.leadquizzes.com/blog/attention-check-questions/
How to Ask Sensitive Survey Questions. (Emily Geisen). https://www.qualtrics.com/blog/how-to-get-the-truth-when-asking-survey-questions-about-sensitive-topics/
Survey methods for sensitive topics. (Graeme Blair). https://graemeblair.com/papers/sensitive.pdf
Survey Design. (Creative Research Systems). https://www.surveysystem.com/sdesign.htm
Ponto., J. (2015). “Understanding and Evaluating Survey Research”. National Center for Biotechnology Information. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4601897/
Price, P, C., Jhangiani, R., & Chiang, I-C, A. “Overview of Survey Research”. Research Methods in Psychology. 2nd Canadian Edition. https://opentextbc.ca/researchmethods/chapter/overview-of-survey-research/
Bhattacherjee., A. “Chapter 9 Survey Research”. Research Methods for The Social Sciences. Social Science Research: Principles, Methods, and Practice. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-hccc-research-methods/chapter/chapter-9-survey-research/
