Type of Surveys:

1. Demographic surveys

These surveys are conducted to collect the demographic data, e.g., household surveys, family size, number
of males in families, etc.
Such surveys are useful in the policy formulation for any city, state or country for the welfare of the people.

2. Educational surveys

These surveys are conducted to collect the educational data, e.g., how many children go to school, how
many persons are graduate, etc.
Such surveys are conducted to examine the educational programs in schools and colleges. Generally,
schools are selected first and then the students from each school constitue the sample.

3. Economic surveys

These surveys are conducted to collect the economic data, e.g., data related to export and import of goods,
industrial production, consumer expenditure etc. Such data is helpful in constructing the indices indicating the
growth in a particular sector of economy or even the overall economic growth of the country.

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 4. Employment surveys

These surveys are conducted to collect the employment related data, e.g., employment rate, labour
conditions, wages, etc. in a city, state or country. Such data helps in constructing various indices to know
the employment conditions among the people.

5. Health and nutrition surveys

These surveys are conducted to collect the data related to health and nutrition issues, e.g., number of visits to
doctors, food given to children, nutritional value etc. Such surveys are conducted in cities, states as well as
countries by national and international organizations like UNICEF, WHO etc.

6. Agricultural surveys

These surveys are conducted to collect the agriculture related data to estimate, e.g., the acreage and
production of crops, livestock numbers, use of fertilizers, use of pesticides and other related topics. The
government bases its planning related to the food issues for the people based on such surveys.

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 7. Marketing surveys

These surveys are conducted to collect the data related to marketing. They are conducted by major
companies, manufacturers or those who provide services to consumer etc. Such data is used for knowing
the satisfaction and opinion of consumers as well as in developing the sales, purchase and promotional
activities etc.

8. Election surveys

These surveys are conducted to study the outcome of an election or a poll. For example, such polls are
conducted in democratic countries to have the opinions of people about any candidate who is contesting
the election.

9. Public polls and surveys

These surveys are conducted to collect the public opinion on any particular issue. Such surveys are
generally conducted by news media and agencies which conduct polls and surveys on current topics of
interest to public.

10. Campus surveys

These surveys are conducted on the students of any educational institution to study about the educational
programs, living facilities, dining facilities, sports activities, etc.

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 Principal steps in a sample survey:
The broad steps to conduct any sample survey are as follows:

1. Objective of the survey:

The objective of the survey has to be clearly defined and well understood by the person planning to
conduct it. It is expected from the statistician to be well versed with the issues to be addressed in
consultation with the person who wants to get the survey conducted. In complex surveys, sometimes the
objective is forgotten and data is collected on those issues which are far away from the objectives.

2. Population to be sampled:
.

Based on the objectives of the survey, decide the population from which the information can be obtained.
For example, population of farmers is to be sampled for an agricultural survey whereas the population of
patients has to be sampled for determining the medical facilities in a hospital.

3. Data to be collected:
.
It is important to decide that which data is relevant for fulfilling the objectives of the survey and to note that
no essential data is omitted. Sometimes, too many questions are asked and some of their outcomes are
never utilized. This lowers the quality of the responses and in turn results in lower efficiency in statistical
inferences.

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4. Degree of precision required:

The results of any sample survey are always subjected to some uncertainty. Such uncertainty can be
reduced by taking larger samples or using superior instruments. This involves more cost and more time. So,
it is very important to decide about the required degree of precision in data. This needs to be conveyed to
the surveyor also.

5. Method of measurement:

The choice of measuring instrument and method to measure the data from the population needs to be
specified clearly. For example, the data has to be collected through interview, questionnaire, personal visit,
combination of any of these approaches, etc. The forms in which the data is to be recorded so that the data
can be transferred to mechanical equipment for easily creating the data summary etc. is also needed to be
prepared accordingly.

6. The frame:

The sampling frame has to be clearly specified. The population is divided into sampling units such that the
units cover the whole population and every sampling unit is tagged with identification. The list of all
sampling units is called the frame. The frame must cover the whole population and the units must not
overlap each other in the sense that every element in the population must belong to one and only one unit.
For example, the sampling unit can be an individual member in the family or the whole family.

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 7. Selection of sample:

The size of the sample needs to be specified for the given sampling plan. This helps in determining and
comparing the relative cost and time of different sampling plans. The method and plan adopted for drawing
a representative sample should also be detailed.

8. The Pre-test:

It is advised to try the questionnaire and field methods on a small scale . This may reveal some troubles and
problems beforehand which the surveyor may face in field in large scale surveys .

9. Organization of the field work:

How to conduct the survey, how to handle business administrative issues, providing proper training to
surveyors, procedures, plans for handling the nonresponse and missing observations etc. are some of the
issues which need to be addressed for organizing the survey work in the fields. The procedure for early
checking of the quality of return should be prescribed. It should be clarified how to handle the situation when
the respondent is not available.

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10. Summary and analysis of data:

It is to be noted that based on the objectives of the data, the suitable statistical tool is decided which can
answer the relevant questions. In order to use the statistical tool, a valid data set is required and this dictates
the choice of responses to be obtained for the questions in the questionnaire, e.g., the data has to be
qualitative, quantitative, nominal, ordinal etc. After getting the completed questionnaire back, it needs to be
edited to amend the recording errors and delete the erroneous data. The tabulating procedures, methods of
estimation and tolerable amount of error in the estimation needs to be decided before the start of survey.
Different methods of estimation may be available to get the answer of the same query from the same data set.
So the data needs to be collected which is compatible with the chosen estimation procedure.

11. Information gained for future surveys:

The completed surveys work as guide for improved sample surveys in future. Beside this they also supply
various types of prior information required to use various statistical tools, e.g., mean, variance, nature of
variability, cost involved etc. Any completed sample survey acts as a potential guide for the surveys to be
conducted in the future. It is generally seen that the things always do not go in the same way in any complex
survey as planned earlier. Such precautions and alerts help in avoiding the mistakes in the execution of
future surveys.

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.
Variability control in sample surveys:

The variability control is an important issue in any statistical analysis. A general objective is to draw statistical
inferences with minimum variability. There are various types of sampling schemes which are adopted in different
conditions. These schemes help in controlling the variability at different stages. Such sampling schemes can be
classified in the following way.

1. Before selection of sampling units

.
• Stratified sampling
• Cluster sampling
• Two stage sampling
• Double sampling etc.

2. At the time of selection of sampling units

• Systematic sampling
• Varying probability sampling

3. After the selection of sampling units

• Ratio method of estimation
• Regression method of estimation

Note that the ratio and regtresion methods are the methods of estimation and not the methods of drawing samples.

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Methods of data collection

1. Physical observations and measurements:

The surveyor contacts the respondent personally through meeting. He observes the sampling unit and records the
data. The surveyor can always use his prior experience to collect the data in a better way. For example, a young man
telling his age as 60 years can easily be observed and corrected by the surveyor.

2. Personal interview:

The surveyor is supplied with a well prepared questionnaire. The surveyor goes to the respondents and asks the
same questions mentioned in the questionnaire. The data in the questionnaire is then filled up accordingly based on
the responses from the respondents.

3. Mail enquiry:

The well prepared questionnaire is sent to the respondents through postal mail, e-mail, etc. The respondents are
requested to fill up the questionnaires and send it back. In case of postal mail, many times the questionnaires are
accompanied by a self addressed envelope with postage stamps to avoid any non-response due to the cost of
postage.

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4. Web based enquiry:
The survey is conducted online through internet based web pages. There are various websites which provide such
facility. The questionnaires are to be in their formats and the link is sent to the respondents through email. By
clicking on the link, the respondent is brought to the concerned website and the answers are to be given online.
These answers are recorded and responses as well as their statistics is sent to the surveyor. The respondents
should have internet connection to support the data collection with this procedure.

5. Registration:
The respondent is required to register the data at some designated place. For example, the number of births and
deaths along with the details provided by the family members are recorded at city municipal office which are
provided by the family members.

6. Transcription from records:

The sample of data is collected from the already recorded information . For example, the details of the number of
persons in different families or number of births/deaths in a city can be obtained from the city municipal office
directly. The methods in (1) to (5) provide primary data which means collecting the data directly from the source.
The method in (6) provides the secondary data which means getting the data from the primary sources.

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