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Survey Methods in Psychology
Survey research is a quantitative and qualitative method with two important characteristics.
First, the variables of interest are measured using self-reports (using questionnaires or interviews).
In essence, survey researchers ask their participants (who are often called respondents in survey
research) to report directly on their own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Second, considerable
attention is paid to the issue of sampling. In particular, survey researchers have a strong preference
for large random samples because they provide the most accurate estimates of what is true in the
population. In fact, survey research may be the only approach in psychology in which random
sampling is routinely used. Beyond these two characteristics, almost anything goes in survey
research. Surveys can be long or short. They can be conducted in person, by telephone, through
the mail, or over the Internet. They can be about voting intentions, consumer preferences, social
attitudes, health, or anything else that it is possible to ask people about and receive meaningful
answers. Although survey data are often analyzed using statistics, there are many questions that
lend themselves to more qualitative analysis.
Most survey research is non-experimental. It is used to describe single variables (e.g., the
percentage of voters who prefer one presidential candidate or another, the prevalence of
schizophrenia in the general population) and also to assess statistical relationships between
variables (e.g., the relationship between income and health).
Survey research can even be used to conduct psychological experiments to test specific
hypotheses about causal relationships between variables. Such studies, when conducted on large
and diverse samples, can be a useful supplement to laboratory studies conducted on university
students. Although this approach is not a typical use of survey research, it certainly illustrates the
flexibility of this method.
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What is a Survey Method?
A survey method is a process, tool, or technique that you can use to gather information in
research by asking questions to a predefined group of people. Typically, it facilitates the exchange
of information between the research participants and the person or organization carrying out the
research.
Survey methods can be qualitative or quantitative depending on the type of research and
the type of data you want to gather in the end. For instance, you can choose to create and administer
an online survey with Formplus that allows you to collect statistical information from respondents.
For qualitative research, you can conduct a face-to-face interview or organize a focus group.
Types of Survey Methods
Interviews
An interview is a survey research method where the researcher facilitates some sort of
conversation with the research participant to gather useful information about the research subject.
This conversation can happen physically as a face-to-face interview or virtually as a telephone
interview or via video and audio-conferencing platforms.
During an interview, the researcher has the opportunity to connect personally with the
research subject and establish some sort of relationship. This connection allows the interviewer
(researcher) to gain more insight into the information provided by the research participant in the
course of the conversation.
An interview can be structured, semi-structured, or unstructured. In a structured interview,
the researcher strictly adheres to a sequence of premeditated questions throughout the
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conversation. This is also known as a standardized interview or a researcher-administered
interview and it often results in quantitative research findings.
In a semi-structured interview, the researcher has a set of premeditated interview questions
but he or she can veer off the existing interview sequence to get more answers and gain more
clarity from the interviewee. The semi-structured interview method is flexible and allows the
researcher to work outside the scope of the sequence while maintaining the basic interview
framework.
Just as the name suggests, an unstructured interview is one that doesn’t restrict the
researcher to a set of premeditated questions or the interview sequence. Here, the researcher is
allowed to leverage his or her knowledge and to creatively weave questions to help him or her to
get useful information from the participant. This is why it is also called an in-depth interview.
Surveys
A survey is a data collection tool that lists a set of structured questions to which
respondents provide answers based on their knowledge and experiences. It is a standard data
gathering process that allows you to access information from a predefined group of respondents
during research.
In a survey, you would find different types of questions based on the research context and
the type of information you want to have access to. Many surveys combine open-ended and closedended questions including rating scales and semantic scales. This means you can use them for
qualitative and quantitative research.
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Surveys come in 2 major formats; paper forms or online forms. A paper survey is a more
traditional method of data collection and it can easily result in loss of data. Paper forms are also
cumbersome to organize and process.
Online surveys, on the other hand, are usually created via data collection platforms like
Formplus. These platforms have form builders where you can create your survey from scratch
using different form fields and features.
Observation
Just as the name suggests, observation is a method of gathering data by paying attention to
the actions and behaviors of the research subjects as they interact in their environment. This
qualitative research method allows you to get first-hand information about the research subjects in
line with the aims and objectives of your systematic investigation.
If you have tried out this survey method, then you must have come across one or more of
the 4 types of observation in research. These are; Complete observer method, observer as
participant method, participant as observer method, and complete participant method.
In the complete observer method, the researcher is entirely detached or absorbed from the
research environment. This means that the participants are completely unaware of the researcher’s
presence and this allows them to act naturally as they interact with their environment. You can
think of it as a remote observation.
The observer as participant method requires the researcher to be involved in the research
environment; albeit with limited interaction with the participants. The participants typically know
the researcher and may also be familiar with the goals and objectives of the systematic
investigation.
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A good example of this is when a researcher visits a school to understand how students
interact with each other during extra-curricular activities. In this case, the students may be fully
aware of the research process; although they may not interact with the researcher.
In the participant as observer method, the researcher has some kind of relationship with the
participants and interacts with them often as he or she carries out the investigation. For instance,
when an anthropologist goes to a host community for research, s/he builds a relationship with
members of the community while the host community is aware of the research.
In the complete participant method, the researcher interacts with the research participants
and is also an active member of the research environment. However, the research participants
remain unaware of the research process; they do not know that a researcher is among them and
they also do not know that they are being observed.
A focus group is an open conversation with a small number of carefully-selected
participants who provide useful information for research. The selected participants are a subset of
your research population and should represent the different groups in the larger population.
In a focus group, the researcher can act as the moderator who sets the tone of the
conversation and guides the discourse. The moderator ensures that the overall conversations are in
line with the aims and objectives of the research and he or she also reduces the bias in the
discussions.
If you are conducting qualitative research with a large and diverse research population,
then adopting focus groups is an effective and cost-efficient method of data collection. Typically,
your focus group should have 6-10 participants, usually 8; including the moderator.
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Based on the focus of your research, you can adopt one or more types of focus groups for your
investigation. Common types of focus groups you should consider include:
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Dual-moderator focus group
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Mini focus group
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Client-involvement focus group
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Virtual or online focus groups.
Conclusion
When conducting research, many survey methods can help you to gather, analyze and
process data effectively. In this article, we have looked at some of these methods in detail including
interviews, focus groups, and the observation approach.
As we’ve shown you, each of these survey methods has its strengths and weaknesses. This
is why your choice should be informed by the type of research you are conducting and what you
want to get out of it. While some of these methods work best for qualitative research, others are
better suited for quantitative data collection.