SURVEY STUDIES

A popular means of gauging people’s opinion of a particular topic, such as their perception or reported use of an eHealth system. The process of conducting research using surveys that researchers send to survey respondents, the collected data is statistically analyzed to draw meaningful research conclusion

Often the terms “survey” and “questionnaire” are used interchangeably as if they are the same. But strictly speaking, there is a difference.

A research approach where subjective opinions are collected from a sample of subjects and analyzed for some aspects of the study population that they represent.

According to the purpose

One of the data collection methods used in the survey approach, where subjects are asked to respond to a predefined set of questions.

 Used to investigate and understand a particular issue or topic area without predetermined notions of the expected responses

 The design is mostly qualitative in nature, seeking input from respondents with open-ended questions focused on why and/or how they perceive certain aspects

-Crosssectional

-Longitudinal

 Used to describe the perception of respondents and the association of their characteristics.

 The design is mostly quantitative and involves the use of descriptive statistics such as frequency distributions of Likert scale responses from participants.

 Used to explain or predict one or more hypothesized relationships between some respondent characteristics.

 The design is quantitative, involving the use of inferential statistics such as regression and factor analysis to quantify the extent to which certain respondent characteristics lead to or are associated with specific outcomes.

-Single cohort of respondents.

-Multiple cohorts of respondents.

-Nominal

-Ordinal

-Interval or ratio

-Questionnaire surveys: May be mail-in, groupadministered, or online surveys

Instruments that are completed in writing by respondents

-Interview surveys: May be personal, telephone, or focus group interviews

Completed by the interviewer based on verbal responses provided by respondents

1. Online/ Email/ SMS:

 The most popular survey research methods these days.

 Their cost is extremely minimal.

 The responses gathered are highly accurate.

2. Phone:

 Useful in collecting data from a more extensive section of the target population.

 There are chances that the money invested in phone surveys will be higher than other mediums, and the time required will be higher.

3. Face-to-face:

 The response rate for this method is the highest.

 It can be costly.

 Surveys can be conducted faster and cheaper compared to other methods of primary data collection such as observation and experiments.

 Surveys are an excellent vehicle for measuring a wide variety of unobservable data, such as people’s preferences (e.g., political orientation), traits (e.g., self-esteem), attitudes (e.g., toward immigrants), beliefs (e.g., about a new law), behaviors (e.g., smoking or drinking behavior), or information (e.g., income).

 Survey research is also ideally suited for remotely collecting data about a population that is too large to observe directly.

 Due to their unobtrusive nature and the ability to respond at one’s convenience, questionnaire surveys are preferred by some respondents.

 Interviews may be the only way of reaching certain population groups such as the homeless or illegal immigrants for which there is no sampling frame available.

 Large sample surveys may allow detection of small effects even while analyzing multiple variables, and depending on the survey design, may also allow comparative analysis of population subgroups (i.e., within-group and between-group analysis).

 It is subject to many biases such as non-response bias, sampling bias, social desirability bias, and recall bias.

 In some cases, unwillingness, or inability of respondents to provide information.

 Differences in understanding: it is difficult to formulate questions in such a way that it will mean exactly the same thing to each respondent.