PSYC217 Chapter 7 - Surveys Intro - Survey research: questionnaires and interviews carefully designed to gather information from people about themselves · Includes information such as attitudes and beliefs, demographics (age, cultural background, etc.), past behaviours, and intended future actions. · Researchers using both qualitative and quantitative approaches employ surveys to collect data. Why Conduct Surveys? - Surveys provide us with a methodology for asking people to tell us about themselves. T · Extremely important > society demands data and information about prominent issues, rather than just intuition and anecdotes. · E.g., university departments need data from graduates to help determine what changes should be made to the curriculum. - If survey data collected is in a responsible fashion, data may be much more useful sources of information than individual anecdotes. · Surveys can inform the policy decisions of lawmakers and public agencies. - In basic research, many important variables, including attitudes, current emotional states, and self-reports of behaviours, are easily studied using questionnaires or interviews. - Surveys can be used in many ways. " Often provide a "snapshot" of how a particular group of people think and behave at a given point in time. · Can also be used to gather data for studying relationships among variables, as well as ways that attitudes and behaviours change over time or differ among different groups of people. - A major benefit to survey methods is direct and fast access to information · E.g., it is easier to simply ask students about work hours to gather important data rather than having to visit each student's place of work and measure their work hours directly. - Closed-ended questions, with only certain numerical responses allowed, provide quantitative data that can be tracked over time, or used to compare scores and changes throughout time - Panel study: in survey research, administering questions to the same people at two or more points in time. · Also known as a longitudinal design. " The same people are tracked and surveyed at two or more points in time, · Each period of sampling data is sometimes known as a "wave," so a "two-wave" panel study involves surveying people at two points in time. · Panel studies allow for research questions about the relationship between one variable (measured first) and another variable measured later. - Survey research is also important as a complement to experimental research findings. Multiple methods are needed to understand any behaviour. · Surveys are an essential starting point to establish if phenomenon/ideas exist " Follow-up experiments after surveys are key in establishing the causal consequences of the phenomenon. Response Bias in Survey Research - Assumption that people are willing to provide truthful and accurate answers always " The degree to which this assumption is untrue for any survey undermines the value of survey research. " Important to note if a minority of people provide inaccurate information, the data may remain valuable and informative o There is more variance associated with true answers relative to measurement