PSYC11H3 Lecture 3: Lecture 3.docx
Document Summary
Advantages of surveys: cost effective, easy to get large samples, cover large geographic areas, easy to analyze, data entry and stats, familiar to most people, generally don"t make people apprehensive, less intrusive than other lab methods. Inability to probe responses: no qualifying information, no nonverbal communication, cannot guarantee that responses are accurate, respondents may intentionally falsify their info, respondents may be unaware of their emotions/attitudes, cannot guarantee that respondents are real, spouses sometimes complete survey"s on the others" behalf, kids complete survey as a goof, limits samples to only the literate folks. General considerations: clarify study goals, survey should be developed to directly address study goals, develop plan for statistical analyses during design stage, know how each question will be analyzed, keep the questionnaires short, long questionnaires get less response than short ones, avoid temptation to ask questions because it would be interesting to know , make it convenient.