Study sheet: Week 3

📋 Course Outline

1. Survey Purposes and Design
2. Question Formats
3. Survey Question Pitfalls
4. Survey Administration
5. Sampling Strategies
6. Alternative Non-Experimental Methods

📖 1. Survey Purposes and Design

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Survey research : Collects responses to understand a research purpose, such as challenges in modern dating or people’s sense of belonging to their ethnic group.

★ Must-know

• 🔄 Survey design involves these stages:
  1. Determining the purpose
  2. Choosing question types
  3. Administering the survey
  4. Considering sampling

Further detail

📌 A pilot study should be conducted before releasing a survey to identify problems in the questionnaire.

💡 Memory Hook

Purpose → questions → administration → sampling

📖 2. Question Formats

★ Must-know

📌 Open-ended questions allow free responses that are more complete and harder to code, whereas close-ended questions offer limited choices that are easier to code but may be simplistic or forced.

• Survey formats include:
  • Categorical questions
  • Visual analogue scales
  • Likert scales

Further detail

• Open-ended questions require more effort from participants, are more suited to smaller or preliminary studies, and are less prone to coding errors than close-ended questions.

• A categorical question can ask whether a respondent is single, married, divorced, or widowed.

• A visual analogue scale asks respondents to mark a position on a line between two endpoints, such as “Not pain at all” and “In a lot of pain.”

💡 Memory Hook

Open-ended gives richer responses; close-ended is easier to code

📖 3. Survey Question Pitfalls

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Social desirability : The tendency to respond in a socially acceptable way rather than report a true opinion.

★ Must-know

📌 Each survey item should address one clearly stated issue and avoid double-barreled questions that ask about two issues at once.

📌 Questionnaires should use unambiguous wording so that response options have a clear meaning.

• Order effects occur when answers to a question are biased by questions that come before it.

📌 Acquiescence is the tendency to agree regardless of question content, and possible solutions include reverse scoring and attention checks.

📌 Question framing should avoid wording that biases results, especially when asking sensitive questions.

Further detail

• Loftus and Palmer (1974), in “Reconstruction of Automobile Destruction: An Example of the Interaction Between Language and Memory,” demonstrated the relevance of wording by comparing verbs such as “smashed,” “bumped,” “collided,” “contacted,” and “hit.” — Loftus, E. F. & Palmer J. C.

💡 Memory Hook

DOASF: Double-barreled, Order, Acquiescence, Social desirability, Framing

📖 4. Survey Administration

📝 Essential Points

• Surveys may be administered:
  • Face-to-face
  • By telephone
  • In written form
  • In computerised formats

📖 5. Sampling Strategies

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Sampling : The process of selecting participants so that the sample can represent the population of interest.
• Stratified random sampling : Represents two or more subsamples in predetermined proportions corresponding to their proportions in the population, such as gender or ethnicity.
• Cluster sampling : Cluster sampling selects groupings from a larger population, such as randomly selecting three of eight factories and surveying everyone in those factories.

★ Must-know

📌 Probability sampling aims to give individuals an equal and independent chance of being selected.

Further detail

• Non-probability convenience sampling selects participants for practical reasons, such as recruiting HP1100 students.

• Simple random sampling can use a random number generator to select participants.

• Multistage sampling randomly selects individuals within selected clusters, such as sampling individuals within each of three selected factories.

💡 Memory Hook

Probability sampling gives selection chances; convenience sampling prioritizes practicality

📖 6. Alternative Non-Experimental Methods

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Observational research : Is conducted in a natural environment with as little disturbance as possible and uses unobtrusive, non-reactive measurement of behavior.
• Archival research : Uses existing data for research, including employment or retrenchment trends, health-related data, crime statistics, and child-directed speech collected in the Talk Together Study (2021).
• Case study : Examines an individual or case involving a phenomenon in depth.

★ Must-know

📌 Observational research still requires clear, specific, and objective measurement of behavior.

Further detail

• Phineas Gage (1823–1860) was a case involving frontal-lobe damage after a railroad accident and subsequent changes in personality, impulsivity, planning, and social relationships.

💡 Memory Hook

Observation records behavior, archival research reuses data, and case studies examine individual cases

📊 Synthesis Tables

Non-Experimental Methods Compared

Method	Data source or setting	Primary focus
Survey	Participants’ responses	Attitudes, experiences, or opinions
Observation	Natural environment	Behavior with minimal disturbance
Archival research	Existing data	Previously collected records or datasets
Case study	Individual case	In-depth examination of a phenomenon