Types of Surveys

QNT-561 Applied Business Research and Statistics

Week #4 Individual Assignment: Types of Surveys

Business Research Methods, Chapter 10

Question 5. In the following situations, decide whether you would use a personal interview, telephone survey, or self-administered questionnaire.

a. A survey of the residents of a new subdivision on why they happened to select that area in which to live. You also wish to secure some information about what they like and do not like about life in the subdivision.

In this case, we have to interview relatively few people who happen to all live in the same neighborhood. The nature of the questions is also somewhat personal: people’s reasons to move into the subdivision, and what they like (or don’t like) about life in the neighborhood.

It’s to be expected that people will feel more inclined to open up and volunteer this kind of information if the researcher had first built rapport and gain their trust. For these reasons, the best technique is face-to-face personal interviews. The face-to-face interaction will serve to build rapport and gain trust, plus the interviewer can observe reactions, use follow-up questions, and clarify doubts from the interviewees.

A consideration with personal interviews is the expense and time needed to collect the data. However, in this case there are relatively few people to interview (only those living in the subdivision), and they’re all in the same neighborhood (thus lowering transportation costs and data collection time.)

b. A poll of students at Metro University on their preferences among three candidates who are running for president of the student government.

Since this is a poll, not all students in the university have to be contacted. A good, inexpensive option here is to intercept students at a few strategic places on campus and ask them face-to-face what their preferred candidate is. Hence, the option is a personal interview.

Normally, personal interviews take longer...