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Social Surveys


What is a Social Survey
 “systematic collection of facts about people living in a specific geographic, cultural, or
administrative area”.
                                                 Sociological Dictionary

Nature of Social surveys
Quantitative approach is more popular in the social surveys, particularly the Applied research.
Questionnaires used in such surveys take a structured form. Whereas qualitative variant of social
surveys are adopted much in academic research they use semi-structured or unstructured
questionnaires.
This lecture will focus on quantitative surveys

Types of Surveys
Main tool used in social surveys to collect data is questionnaire. Based on their nature of
administration several types of surveys are identified:
• Surveys based on face to face interviews
• Postal Surveys
• Telephone Surveys
• Online Surveys (social media any other)

Suitability to Developing  Countries
Type
Entire Country
Urban  Areas
Segment of  Social groups
Face to face interviews
           √
   √
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Postal Surveys

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Telephone Surveys

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Online Surveys

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Steps of a Social Survey
The social survey method has the ultimate goal of seeking social facts:
• Enunciating the object or purpose of the survey;
• Definition of the problem under study;
• Delimitation of the area or scope of study;
• Examination of the available evidences or sources relating to the problem;
• Preparation of questionnaire schedule;
• Preparation of the analytical plan
• Field work to collect data;
• Arrangement, tabulation and statistical analysis of the data; interpretation of results;
deduction and graphic expression

Successful Survey
• Questionnaire should be formulated  based on the objectives of the survey and to overcome the
field level constraints
• Selection of the representative sample
• Questionnaire Administration: Though it appears to be simple, this is a hard work which take a
considerable time.
Social surveys provide a rich information of society based on individual cases.
However, success of the survey depends largely on:

Possible Errors in Survey Research
• Sampling Error
• Non-sampling error
•Response error
•Non- response error

Good sources to learn about how to construct questionnaires for developing countries
Paul Glewwe -An overview of questionnaire design
for household surveys in developing Countries
UNESCO (1963) Opinion Surveys in Developing
Countries

Construction of a Questionnaire:
1.Research Objectives have to be converted to survey objectives and finally to questions:
• Can all research objectives transferred in to survey objectives?
• Should some of them drop in order to keep the questionnaire neat, short ?
• Should additional information like general information collect?
( Think moving forward and backward through objectives and questions)

2. Structure  of the Questionnaire
• Make it as modules, containing different segment for different components (General Information,
Education,  Employment, Housing)
•Group similar modules which can be answered at a single a stretch by a single person.(expenditure
on food children wife can answer more comfortably)
Researcher may need to be familiar to the culture of the area to do this
•

“Where we are concerned with
cultures that are as varied and as widely differentiated as is the case in the
underdeveloped countries, it is clear that no research can be undertaken
with any chance of success unless there is previous knowledge of the people
of those countries”.
UNESCO 1963. p.8
Box 1: To work as above, a good understanding of the society is essential

3. Possible Question Styles
1.Filtering questions
2.Open questions
3.Closed questions
4.Rank questions

3. Inappropriate Questions
• Not to have any sensitive questions. Particularly questions in the first module requires to be
easy)
• Double barrel questions
• Questions indicating habitual behavior
• Leading loaded questions

4. Some strategies to enhance the quality
• Cording may reduce the efforts for writing
• Should include skip cord
• Probe question
• Conducting of a pilot survey

 Pilot Survey
Pilot survey provides an opportunity to researcher to pretest the questionnaire designed. As a
matter of practical fact about 20 questionnaires get completed. If they are free from problems,
they can be printed or other wise they  have to be corrected. Following design aspects of the
questionnaire can be checked by this
• Question design and format
• Questionnaires length
• Questionnaire output
• Classification questions
• Serialization and other information
(Parfitt, 1997)