Week 4

• In your text book - Complete Terms in Review, 1-4, on page 204.

1. Compare the advantages and disadvantages of the survey to those of observation.

The survey is good for quickly needed information, disparate respondents; respondent possessing suppressed information, for opinions, review of past behavior, the gathering of future intentions, keeping down costs and respondents are difficult to reach.

Disadvantages of the survey method are: respondents may not reveal the truth, motivation is required to answer, follow-ups and callbacks are generally required.

On the other hand, the observation method is good for collecting data when a natural setting is imperative, gathering information that may not be revealed by the respondent or not known by the subject (for example blood pressure values at one hour intervals), and where behavioral patterns are required.

Disadvantages of the observation method are: sensitive material is generally needed and persons are sometimes not told the complete truth behind the exercise, memory decay can be a major factor of incorrect reporting when devices do not exist for accurate recording, and it is generally more expensive to carry out (MBA Notesworld, n.d.).

Under which circumstances could you make a case for using observation?

Besides collecting data visually, observation involves listening, reading, smelling, and touching. Observation would be used when a full range of behavioral and nonbehavioral activities and conditions need to be monitored. Nonbehavioral would include record analysis, physical condition analysis and physical process analysis. Behavioral would include nonverbal analysis, linguistic analysis, extralinguistic analysis and spatial analysis (Cooper, 2011 p. 189).

This brings to mind when I am shopping at Macy’s and the associates are spraying perfume on the test strips and approaching passing customers to smell the product. They are making note of the reaction to the fragrance. If the...