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Quantitative Techniques-II

Notes put them in this kind of position, they may not tell you the truth, or they may “spin” the
response so that it makes them look better. This may be more of a problem in an interview
situation where they are face-to face or on the phone with a live interviewer.
2. Can interviewer distortion and subversion be controlled?: Interviewers may distort an
interview as well. They may not ask questions that make them uncomfortable. They may
not listen carefully to respondents on topics for which they have strong opinions. They
may make the judgment that they already know what the respondent would say to a
question based on their prior responses, even though that may not be true.
3. Can false respondents be avoided?: With mail surveys it may be difficult to know who
actually responded. Did the head of household complete the survey or someone else? Did
the CEO actually give the responses or instead pass the task off to a subordinate? Is the
person you’re speaking with on the phone actually who they say they are? At least with
personal interviews, you have a reasonable chance of knowing who you are speaking
with. In mail surveys or phone interviews, this may not be the case.
Administrative Issues

Last, but certainly not least, you have to consider the feasibility of the survey method for your
study.
1. Costs: Cost is often the major determining factor in selecting survey type. You might
prefer to do personal interviews, but can’t justify the high cost of training and paying for
the interviewers. You may prefer to send out an extensive mailing but can’t afford the
postage to do so.
2. Facilities: Do you have the facilities (or access to them) to process and manage your study?
In phone interviews, do you have well-equipped phone surveying facilities? For focus
groups, do you have a comfortable and accessible room to host the group? Do you have
the equipment needed to record and transcribe responses?
3. Time: Some types of surveys take longer than others. Do you need responses immediately
(as in an overnight public opinion poll)? Have you budgeted enough time for your study
to send out mail surveys and follow-up reminders, and to get the responses back by mail?
Have you allowed for enough time to get enough personal interviews to justify that
approach?

4. Personnel: Different types of surveys make different demands of personnel. Interviews
require interviewers who are motivated and well-trained. Group administered surveys
require people who are trained in group facilitation. Some studies may be in a technical
area that requires some degree of expertise in the interviewer.
Clearly, there are lots of issues to consider when you are selecting which type of survey you
wish to use in your study. And there is no clear and easy way to make this decision in many
contexts. There may not be one approach which is clearly the best. You may have to make
tradeoffs of advantages and disadvantages. There is judgment involved. Two expert researchers
may, for the very same problem or issue, select entirely different survey methods. But, if you
select a method that isn’t appropriate or doesn’t fit the context, you can doom a study before you
even begin designing the instruments or questions themselves.

6.4.3 Observation Studies

An observational study draws inferences about the possible effect of a treatment on subjects,
where the assignment of subjects into a treated group versus a control group is outside the

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