Hi all,
A small footnote. I was hoping someone else might offer this view about surveys. But no one did so here goes…
Having trained in survey design at both undergraduate and post graduate level, I can claim some modest expertise in the area.
I have undertaken major research and consulting in survey design for three national survey and census government agencies. I have also written a large number of guidelines for government and business on the design of survey instruments: the forms that organisations use to collect data. I say all of this not to boast, but just to establish that what I’m about to say is not necessarily the ravings of a senile old fool. (Though many might think otherwise)
I view surveys from a communication point of view. Surveys are a series of highly structured conversations—about 5 in a sequence—between survey participants and forms at one end and survey reports and readers at the other. Five opportunities for mistakes, inferences, and assumptions about people, facts, and institutions: a long chain of Chinese whispers, if you will. Moreover, even the best of forms design in current use lead to a large number of what statisticians euphemistically call ’non-statistical errors’.
I stopped doing surveys thirty years ago. I pay little serious attention to research using surveys in my own design research.
Lot’s of papers on this and related matters on our website, especially for our Members. See particularly my series called The Big Shift
https://communication.org.au <https://communication.org.au/>
David
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