Survey Research Methodology

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Survey Research Methodology
Dlab Workshop

• Leora Lawton
• February 9, 2015

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Outline

• Purposes of survey research
• A brief foray into sampling
• Considerations in design
• Phone, Mail, Internet, Face-to-Face
• Incentives

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Surveys Defined

• A technique for gathering data, recording them
  with numeric codes, for the purpose of
  statistical analysis.
• Surveys are quantitative but can have qualitative
  components to them.
• Surveys typically involve interviewing
  individuals using mail, internet, face-to-face or
  telephone methods, but may also involve recording
  of existing data into a quantitative data base.
• Require identification of the research goal,
  sampling design, questionnaire design, analysis
  plan, and reporting.
• Survey research rests on a long history of
  scientific research for optimizing data quality
  through minimization of sources of statistical
  error. They are part art, but they are
  definitely science.
• Just because youve taken surveys does not mean
  you know how to design or conduct them.

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The Process

1. Identify the research objective and verify that
   it is best served with a quantitative approach.
   Create an outline or conceptual model of your
   objective.
2. Select the design most suited for your objective.
3. Keep in mind that preliminary qualitative work
   may be required to identify survey items
   (questions).
4. Identify the population best suited for providing
   the information and locate a list of potential
   respondents (sampling frame).
5. Identify the means best suited for reaching this
   population.
6. Design the instrument (questionnaire) using the
   conceptual model as your outline. Review,
   revise, test (repeat)
7. Collect the data
8. Prepare the data set for analysis
9. Analyze and report.

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Defining the Objective

• Before you know what to write, you must first
  figure out what you want to know.

Quantify Describe Predict
Correlate Categorize Classify
Explain Causality Determine Track Trend Changes

• Example
• Problem There is a need to roll out a new
  public health program.
• Research Objective How can we design a program
  that will meet the public health goal and also
  resonate with the culture of the population we
  are targeting.

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Identify the Relationship I

• The conceptual model and framework is developed
  in your dissertation proposal.
• A conceptual model consists of the relationship
  between that which you seek to explain (which
  will be the dependent variable(s)) and the
  explanatory factors (independent variables). The
  relationship is explained by the theory.
• Example An education program results in more
  students continuing to grad school

Support, Value Meaningful Experience Enjoyment
Enrolling in Grad School
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Identify the Relationship. II

• Next, you begin to identify the detail of factors
  that will be used in your survey as real
  questions that people can answer meaningfully,
  with validity and reliability.
• Example To build trust, one uses locally hired
  and trained staff, so it has familiarity and also
  adds more resources to the environment. The
  location of the service will be in the already
  utilized local health clinics. This will lead to
  more use of the service.

Peer Relationships
Mentoring
Intention, Applications, Enrollment
Stipends, scholarships
Classes, Conferences
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From Objective to Design

• Once the objective is clearly identified, then
  you can begin thinking about
• Sample
• Who can provide you this data,
• Who is involved in the process or phenomenon,
• Do you need a control or comparison group?
• Design
• Experimental
• Cross-sectional
• Panel
• Longitudinal

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From Objectives to Design

• Experimental Refer to Shadish, Cook and
  Campbell if using an experimental design
• Comparing groups (control vs test)
• Randomly assigned
• Not randomly assigned
• Self-controls before after designs or panel
  (same respondents
• Historical comparing results from one sample
  with a later one (different respondents)

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From Objectives to Design

• Descriptive
• Cross sectional (snapshot)
• Cohorts same people over time, or same sample
  frame over time (longitudinal in my book)
• Case control - matching

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Sample and Sampling

• Who do you need data from?
• Will they be able to provide meaningful data?
• And how can you reach them?
• Perhaps the biggest challenge in data collection
  is identifying a target population that you can,
  in fact, reach.

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Sample

• Universe target population
• Sampling frame list of people in your universe
• Sample the selection of potential respondents
  to be contacted
• Respondents the units who actually provided
  data
• Non-respondents the ones that didnt.
• Item non-response didnt answer specific
  questions.

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Sampling

• Once the sample population has been identified,
  you need
• Sample size
• See Sample Size Calculator in Resources section
  of class website
• Sample frame creation and selection
• Coverage
• Determination of eligible sample frame elements
• Sources for acquiring samples

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Sampling

• Sampling strategies
• Probability samples each element has a gt 0
  probability of being selected
• Simple Random Sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Stratified
• Multistage
• Non-probability Snowballs.
• Respondent Driven Sampling (RDS)

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Data Collection Methods and Survey Instruments

• Methods Instruments
• Face to face paper, CAPI, handheld
• Telephone paper, CATI, IVR
• Internet email, web-based
• Mail paper, scan-form
• Fax paper
• Also
• Mixed Mode e.g., fax, web, mail
• Multimode phone-mail-phone

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Data Collection Methodand Survey Instrument

• Each method has advantages and disadvantages in
  terms of
• Ability to reach correct target
• Budget
• Time
• Error (non-response, sampling error)
• Appropriateness of data needed

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Data Collection Methodand Survey Instrument

• Face to face
• Less commonly used
• Often residential, door to door
• Mall intercepts
• Executive one-on-one in-depth interviews (IDIs)
• Very time consuming and expensive
• Well-trained interviewers, often matched for
  ethnicity, race and/or language
• Residential sampling often uses census blocks
• Paper, CAPI, handheld, or multi-mode.

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Data Collection Methodand Survey Instrument

• Telephone
• RDD now challenged by lifestyle and tech
  developments
• Both business and residential
• Moderate time, but fairly expensive
• Trained interviewers, may match for ethnicity,
  race and/or language
• RDD, listed sample, or specialized lists
• CATI, paper

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Data Collection Methodand Survey Instrument

• Internet
• Replacing much telephone and mail research but
  losing representativeness. Ease of fielding
  introduces design and measurement error.
• Both business and residential
• Quick data collection, often at a very low cost
• No interviewer effects, but could be browser
  effects
• Specialized lists or pop-ups
• Web-based ASP, software, embedded forms.

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Data Collection Methodand Survey Instrument

• Mail
• Some predict a come-back.
• Both business and residential
• SLOW data collection, moderate cost
• No interviewer effects. No control on respondent
• Specialized lists, census-based lists.
• Paper, Scantron or similar forms.

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Special Populations

• Children
• 13-17
• Similar to adults, but make the language more
  conversational and perky. Can use icons for
  survey rating scales.
• 10-13
• Short, with pictures, but some abstract thinking,
  and they have already started taking assessment
  and similar tests, so or more familiar. Can look
  like survey
• 6-9
• short, with pictures. Children are VERY literal.
  Limited abstract thinking, variable reading
  skills. Make it a game.
• If web-based or CASI, add voice-overs.
• 5 yrs or under
• do ethnographic only

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Response Rate (brief intro)

• Your goal in research design is to reduce error
  as much as possible and enhance response rate as
  much as possible.
• Response rate
• responded / ( potential approached
  ineligibles)
• Non-response 1 RR
• Examples of non-response
• Item non-response
• Terminations
• Refusals
• Language
• Callbacks

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Writing a Questionnaire

• The Groves et al. chapter focuses on the
  principles of asking questions, that is, the
  cognitive and psychological processes around
  respondents reading, interpreting and answering
  questions (also known as items).
• The Dillman chapter (2) talks about specific
  rules around the items.
• Also, look at the Questionnaire Guidelines
  document (.pdf) on the website for an overview of
  the process and the most common guidelines.

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Writing a Questionnaire

• Your objectives are the map to the actual
  questions.
• Which factors in membership organizations
  identify oligarchy?
• From literature review
• Communication to members
• Input from members
• Following by-laws
• Leadership cycles out of office
• Stability of executive office infrastructure
• Crisis

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Writing a Questionnaire

• Further break down the concepts until you can
  come up with specific issues around which
  questions can be written.
• Mentoring
• Did you visit the GSI consultant in Dlab (yes,
  no)
• How often?
• Did you work with any faculty members?
• Describe that experience (open-end)
• Financial support
• How important was the stipend for you?
• How would you have paid for tuition if you didnt
  have this program?
• Classes
• Which courses did you take? Overall, how much
  did you think the coursework contributed to your
  ability to do research?
• Conferences
• Did you attend an annual meeting? Did you
  present a paper? What else did you do at the
  conference
• Peer relationships
• Did you make friends in this program?

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Cognition

• Read/hear gt Interpret gt Identify answer gt Provide
  answer
• At any stage, respondent burden can overwhelm the
  process.
• At any stage, researcher error can put up a
  stumbling block or hurdle.
• At any stage, the survey instrument, whether
  interviewer-administered or self-administered,
  can block the process.

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Respondent Burden Dont make them work

• Read/Hear The question is too complex, wordy,
  sloppy.
• Interpret Grammatically incorrect, outside the
  flow of thought, backwards logic, faulty logic,
  unfamiliar terms.
• Identifying answer Meaning to item found,
  remembered, calculated. Or not.
• Answer provided correctly or incorrectly, social
  desirable, satisficing.

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Critical Feature

• Once the data are collected, you must be able to
  answer the questions specified in your
  objectives. You wont be able to if you dont go
  through the objectives clearly, and map the
  questions to them.
• If you dont know what you are going to do with
  the data once its collected, you may not have
  the right question, or you havent been following
  objectives, or have none identified.
• The question is unnecessary
• The question is off-target

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Critical Feature

• Examples
• 1. Question
• How satisfied are you with the ease of reaching a
  representative by telephone?
• Whats the objective??
• Possible meanings
• Time to answer phone (number of rings)
• Number of buttons to push before reaching
  correct rep
• Amount of time on hold.
• Number of reps before reaching correct one.
• 2. Objective
• Understand interest in viewing edited reruns
• Determine likelihood of viewing on another cable
  network
• Question How likely are you to watch an edited
  program on another network?
• Will this question work? Why or why not?

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Getting on first base

• Because first impressions are all you have before
  they toss in the mail, hit the delete button, or
  hang up.
• Think carefully about how to reach your target
  respondent. Especially for organizational studies
  (or businesses) you may need to try a handful of
  more qualitative approaches to see what works
  best.

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Telephone Introduction Principles

• Phone call
• Gate keepers and screeners probe for correct
  respondent.
• Busy gt call back (6 times)
• No Answer gt call back (6 times)
• Alternate time of day, day of week (can program
  this into CATI)
• Refusal Soft gt ask to reschedule or call
  another time. Employ different interview who has
  good track record with converting refusals
• Refusal Hard gt apologize for intrusion. Ask for
  another time, another person. Code as refusal.

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Telephone Introduction Principles

• In our introductions, we
• introduce ourselves - interviewer's
  name and Indiana University Center for Survey
  Research
• briefly describe the survey topic
  (e.g., barriers to health insurance)
• describe the geographic area we are
  interviewing (e.g., people in Indiana) or target
  sample (e.g., aerospace engineers)
• describe how we obtained the contact
  information (e.g., the telephone number was
  randomly generated we received your name from a
  professional organization)
• identify the sponsor (e.g., National
  Endowment for the Humanities)
• describe the purpose(s) of the research
  (e.g., satisfaction with services provided by a
  local agency)
• give a "good-faith" estimate of the
  time required to complete the interview (this
  survey will take about 10 minutes to complete)
• promise anonymity and confidentiality
  (when appropriate)
• mention to the respondent that
  participation is voluntary
• mention to the respondent that
  item-nonresponse is acceptable
• ask permission to begin.

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Telephone Intro Example

• "Hello, I'm fill NAME from the Center for
  Survey Research at Indiana University. We're
  surveying Indianapolis area residents to ask
  their opinions about some health issues. This
  study is sponsored by the National Institutes of
  Health and its results will be used to research
  the effect of community ties on attitudes towards
  medical practices.
• The survey takes about 40 minutes to complete.
  Your participation is anonymous and voluntary,
  and all your answers will be kept completely
  confidential. Your telephone number was randomly
  generated by a computer. If there are any
  questions that you don't feel you can answer,
  please let me know and we'll move to the next
  one. So, if I have your permission, I'll
  continue."
• At the end, we offer the respondent information
  on how to contact the principal investigator. For
  example
• "John Kennedy is the Principal Investigator for
  this study. Would you like Dr. Kennedy's address
  or telephone number in case you want to contact
  him about the study at any time?"

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Mail Intro Principles

• Dillmans Tailored Design Method
• Advance letter, on letterhead, from sponsor
  (where applicable)
• Packet contains cover letter, instrument,
  postage-paid return envelope, 2 incentive.
• Postcard reminder 2 weeks later
• Second packet 4 weeks later
• Follow-up phone call if possible

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Email Intro Principles

• Use principles of social psychology
• Politely greet
• Ask for help
• Appeal to altruism
• Anchor to self-interest
• Define help needed
• Tell them what to do
• K.I.S.S.
• From from identifiable source, personally known
  (not a personal acquaintance, but where a
  relationship exists)
• Subject Avoid the look of spam.
• Follow-up with reminder emails. Most responses
  occur with 72 hours. Follow-up can be 4-7 days
  later. Too many follow-ups is perceived as spam.

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Email Intro Examples

• Email invitation
• From An organization you know
• Subject Take a survey about your ltinterestgt
• Message Dear ltname if possiblegt
• We are conducting a survey to evaluate our recent
  annual meeting in Montreal. Please take a couple
  of moments to share with us your experience and
  opinions. The survey will take about 4 minutes,
  and will greatly benefit future planning in ORG
  so conferences will be even more rewarding and
  enjoyable for you. Just click on the link below
  to get started. (If no button appears, copy and
  paste the URL into your browser.)
• Sincerely,
• John Doe, Survey Director
• If you have any questions, contact me directly
  at 800 555-1212, or email jdoe_at_org.org.
• Pop-up
• Hi! We are conducting a survey to evaluate our
  website. You can help by providing your opinions.
  Doing so will make this website better for you.
  The survey is short just 3 or 4 minutes. Please
  click on the link below and get started!
• (top of survey) Thanks for taking our brief
  survey! We greatly appreciate all of your
  feedback.

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Incentives

• Few topics are covered in more depth than the
  issue of incentives.
• How much for which audiences is necessary to
  maximize participation?
• Do incentives cause bias?
• What form? Cash? Coupons? Gifts?
• When cash/gifts are not acceptable, then what?

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Incentives

• Mail surveys
• 2 more than 1, more than nothing. 5 not much
  more help.
• Some suggest higher incentives, upon second try,
  especially for hard-to-reach populations.
• Phone Surveys
• Often not needed. Long ones should have it
  though.
• Email Surveys
• Experiments with prizes, drawings, cash, coupons,
  gift cards. Rewarding panel members especially
  critical.
• Special Audiences consider summaries of
  results, charity contributions.
• Government
• Business
• Physicians, IT, other oversampled professions
  More Cash. 75

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Examples of papers from AAPOR 2006

• Increasing Response Rates with Incentives
• Non-Monetary Incentive Strategies in Online
  Panels
• Incentive Check Content Experimentation
• Effect of Incentives on Mail Survey Response A
  Cash and Contingent Valuation Experiment
• Experimenting with Incentives
• Are One-Time Increases in Respondent Fee Payments
  Cost-Effective on a Longitudinal Survey? An
  Analysis of the Effect of Respondent. Fee
  Experiments on Long-Term Participation in the
  NLSY97
• Personal Contact and Performance-Based Incentives
• Effect of Progressive Incentives on Response
  Rates
• Lottery Incentives with a College-Aged Population