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Unit 6: Research Design

Interviews are completed by the interviewer based on the respondent says. Sometimes, it’s hard Notes
to tell the difference between a questionnaire and an interview. For instance, some people think
that questionnaires always ask short closed-ended questions while interviews always ask broad
open-ended ones. But you will see questionnaires with open-ended questions (although they do
tend to be shorter than in interviews) and there will often be a series of closed-ended questions
asked in an interview.
Survey research has changed dramatically in the last ten years. We have automated telephone
surveys that use random dialing methods. There are computerized kiosks in public places that
allows people to ask for input. A whole new variation of group interview has evolved as focus
group methodology. Increasingly, survey research is tightly integrated with the delivery of
service. Your hotel room has a survey on the desk. Your waiter presents a short customer
satisfaction survey with your check. You get a call for an interview several days after your last
call to a computer company for technical assistance. You’re asked to complete a short survey
when you visit a web site.

Selecting the Survey Method

Selecting the type of survey you are going to use is one of the most critical decisions in many
social research contexts. You’ll see that there are very few simple rules that will make the
decision for you – you have to use your judgment to balance the advantages and disadvantages
of different survey types.

Population Issues

He first set of considerations have to do with the population and its accessibility.

1. Can the population be enumerated?: For some populations, you have a complete listing of
the units that will be sampled. For others, such a list is difficult or impossible to compile.
For instance, there are complete listings of registered voters or person with active drivers
licenses. But no one keeps a complete list of homeless people. If you are doing a study that
requires input from homeless persons, you are very likely going to need to go and find
the respondents personally. In such contexts, you can pretty much rule out the idea of mail
surveys or telephone interviews.

2. Is the population literate?: Questionnaires require that your respondents can read. While
this might seem initially like a reasonable assumption for many adult populations, we
know from recent research that the instance of adult illiteracy is alarmingly high. And,
even if your respondents can read to some degree, your questionnaire may contain difficult
or technical vocabulary. Clearly, there are some populations that you would expect to be
illiterate. Young children would not be good targets for questionnaires.
3. Are there language issues?: We live in a multilingual world. Virtually every society has
members who speak other than the predominant language. Some countries (like Canada)
are officially multilingual. And, our increasingly global economy requires us to do research
that spans countries and language groups. Can you produce multiple versions of your
questionnaire? For mail instruments, can you know in advance the language your
respondent speaks, or do you send multiple translations of your instrument? Can you be
confident that important connotations in your instrument are not culturally specific?
Could some of the important nuances get lost in the process of translating your questions?
4. Will the population cooperate?: People who do research on immigration issues have a
difficult methodological problem. They often need to speak with undocumented
immigrants or people who may be able to identify others who are. Why would we expect
those respondents to cooperate? Although the researcher may mean no harm, the

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