Survey page/Cheryl's Survey

From WikEd

“Surveys may be used for descriptive, explanatory and exploratory purposes. They are chiefly used in studies that have individual people as the units of analysis.�? (Babbie, p. 257) If anyone is interested, Babbie’s chapter on Survey Research is very useful; it gives useful tips from dressing appropriately for an interview survey (seriously) to analyzing “success return rates�? for mailing surveys.

• Topic: An immigrant advocacy group approaches me to provide an educational program to a group of 40 adults.
• Population: 40 adult immigrants who gather once a week at a community church under the auspice of the advocacy group. The advocacy group gives talks on lifeskills and legal issues.
• Survey purpose: To explore the overall learning needs of this group of adult immigrants. This survey will serve as a needs assessment tool to design future learning opportunities (talks and classes) for these individuals.
• Survey process: Use one of the gatherings sponsored by the advocacy group as the place to collect survey data. Mailings might not be as effective with a population that is highly mobile. In addition, according to Babbie (p. 262), a 50% response is adequate, 60% is good and 70% is very good. Thus, even though these might not be statistically accurate figures, they provide us with a “ballpark�? idea of how many surveys we might want to get back to be able to design an appropriate educational program. Babbie believes that face-to-face interviews usually lead to an 80-85% completion rate.
• Type of questions to ask:
  • Age
  • Education level
  • General interests
  • Family life
  • Work information: Type of work, location, etc.
  • Availability
  • Fears and hopes
  • Ranking areas of study: ESL, Business, Health, etc.
  • Personal and professional goals