Question 26 of 30 Identify the strength and weaknesses, in general, of survey research - Essay Example

Answer Survey research is commonly employed as a means of data collection. In fact, “asking people questions is the most common data collection method in social science” (2011, p. 161). One strength of survey research is that it enables the researchers to retrieve information directly from the people who are the subject of the research. This makes the information collected reliable because it reflects the thoughts and perceptions or behaviors of exactly the subjects that are the focus of the research.

Another strength particularly of the self-administered surveys is that they make very large samples feasible (oocities.org, n.d.). A weakness of survey research is that the results of the research are primarily depicted by the quality of survey conducted by the researchers. Some of the biases of survey research are interviewer bias, non-response bias, sample bias, and questionnaire bias (jou.ufl.edu, n.d., p. 1). In survey research, information is collected by asking questions in written or oral form.

There is hardly any objective measure to judge the reliability of questions. What is perceived by one respondent one way might be perceived by another respondent in another way. The data becomes even less reliable when the respondents are asked to respond to written questions because there is no one to explain their meanings. In addition to that, the respondents are necessarily required to choose from among a set of responses, and the respondent has to select only from them whether or not any of them actually reflects his/her thoughts.

Retrieving only the correct and the required information from people is a skill that is not mastered by many researchers. Accordingly, the results of their studies obtained from survey research are not very reliable. References:(2011). Survey Research and Other Ways of Asking Questions. Chapter 7. Cengage Learning. jou.ufl.edu. (n.d.). Survey Research. Retrieved from http://www.jou.ufl.edu/people/faculty/chanolmsted/Survey%20Research.pdf. oocities.org. (n.d.). Strengths and weaknesses of survey research.

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