Conducting A Survey

Conducting a Survey
What are surveys?
A survey is a way of collecting information that you hope represents the views of the
whole community or group in which you are interested. There are three main ways of
going about this; case study surveys, which collect information from a part of a group or
community, without trying to choose them for overall representation of the larger
population. Sampled surveys, which are the type we'll be focusing on in this section, ask
a sample portion of a group to answer your questions. Census surveys, in which you give
your survey questionnaire to every member of the population you want to learn about.
Surveys collect information in as uniform a manner as possible asking each respondent

the same questions in the same way to ensure that the answers are most influenced by
the respondents' experiences, not due to how the interviewer words the questions.
Why should you conduct a survey?
You can collect information about the behaviors, needs, and opinions using
surveys. Surveys can be used to find out attitudes and reactions, to measure client
satisfaction, to gauge opinions about various issues, and to add credibility to your
research. Surveys are a primary source of information that is, you directly ask someone
for a response to a question, rather than using any secondary sources like written records.
How do you prepare a survey?

1. Decide on the purpose of the survey.
2. Decide whom you will survey.
3. Decide what method you will use to collect your survey data.
4. Write or prepare your questions.
5. Distribute or conduct your survey
Gathering Information from Survey
Data scientists are interested in understanding what people think and do, and
surveys are one of the most straightforward ways to collect that kind of data. Traditional
methods for administering surveys include telephone interviews, mail surveys, and
personal interviews. But today, online surveys are one of the most popular ways to collect
information about people.
The following are the advantages of online surveys:
1. Easy to create and administer:
2. Reach a large number of people:
3. Wide geographical reach:
4. High response speed
5. Direct data entry:
Disadvantages of online surveys:

1. Low response rates:
2. Samples do not always represent the populations:
These are the following steps in gathering information from all types of survey including
online surveys.
1. Determine your objectives
Each survey starts with a purpose or topic, which needs to be broken down into
objectives. Our objectives should be clearly defined, as they inform our questions and
data analysis. Make sure objectives are specific, measurable, and inform actions (such
as pricing strategy or a marketing campaign).
2. Population and sampling
a. Defining the population - The group of individuals we’re trying to research by
conducting a survey are called the population. Respondents or participants are the
people who’ll take part in our research project.
b. Sampling methods for online surveys
• Simple random sampling and systematic random sampling, in which
everyone in the population has the same chance of being selected.
• Stratified sampling and cluster sampling, which allows us to select

people from different sub-groups, such as age-groups or genders.
c. Sources of error and sample size- A sampling error is low when the sample
looks closely like the population we’re surveying. The margin of error and level of
confidence reflect how well a sample represents a population.
3. Create a data analysis pla

Before designing our survey, we need an analysis plan. This will ensure we think
about everything we want to analyze, and how we can get statistically representative
results that will let us make that analysis. The easiest way to create an analysis plan is to
write out our survey objectives and how we plan to analyze each one.
4. Designing the survey

Most surveys collect three types of information:
• Demographics of respondents, including age, gender, income, and level of
education, which can be used to describe the respondents and compare
groups of respondents.
• Quantifiable information we can analyze statistically
• Open-ended questions that allow respondents to add qualitative data.
• Writing good questions
5. Pre-testing
The next step is testing to be sure that we’ll get the quality of responses we’re
looking for. Pre-testing can reveal numerous problems, such as badly phrased questions
and missing response categories. Test the survey with a larger group of people and track
how they do it.
6. Conducting the survey
There are different ways to distribute a survey:
• Send by email.
• Embed or advertise on a website or app, using a link.
• Using pop-up windows on a website or app.
• Posting on social media.
7. Data Analysis
Most survey tools include basic statistics and simple data analysis options. We
should track where people dropped out, how long it took them to complete the survey,
etc., and use these insights to augment our data analysis. We should also analyze why
data is missing (if any is missing) and look at outliers to see how this impact the results.
8. Reporting results
The last step is to report survey results. Depending on the purpose of our survey,
we might do things like writing a report, presenting the results in a meeting, and using the
results as part of a larger research project.

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Conducting A Survey

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Conducting a Survey

What are surveys?

Surveys collect information in as uniform a manner as possible asking each respondent

Why should you conduct a survey?

How do you prepare a survey?

Disadvantages of online surveys:

• Stratified sampling and cluster sampling, which allows us to select

3. Create a data analysis pla

4. Designing the survey

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