Dear David,
Like any other research method, surveys have their own share of problems.
And yes, depending on the context they may lead to a lot of random
statistical noise and/or measurement error, but so does any other research
method.
In my own research, I use a longitudinal survey called IPEDS (
https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/). This data goes back to late 60s (its
predecessor was called HEGIS) By law, almost every higher-institution
education in the US needs to fill one out, every year. It has institutional
data such as student numbers, faculty information, budgets, degree
conferrals etc (nothing opinion based though) on more than 4000
institutions. If you are doing research on large scale institutional change
in higher education in the US, there is simply no other alternative.
Surveys might be problematic in your context, but they have their uses. For
some types of research questions, they are the best tool we have. For some
others, they are an absolute pain in the neck. You can say the same thing
easily for experiments, interviews, ethnography etc.
Yours,
ali
On 20 June 2018 at 03:57, [log in to unmask] <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 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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