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Follow all directions Chapter 4 Survey Research—Describing and Predic�ng Behavior Kim Steele/Photodisc/Ge�y Images Chapter Contents Introduc�on to Survey Research (h�p://content.thuzelearning.com/books/Malec.5743.13.1/sec�ons/sec1.1#sec1.1) Designing Ques�onnaires (h�p://content.thuzelearning.com/books/Malec.5743.13.1/sec�ons/sec1.2#sec1.2) Sampling From the Popula�on (h�p://content.thuzelearning.com/books/Malec.5743.13.1/sec�ons/sec1.3#sec1.3) Analyzing Survey Data (h�p://content.thuzelearning.com/books/Malec.5743.13.1/sec�ons/sec1.4#sec1.4) Ethical Issues in Survey Research (h�p://content.thuzelearning.com/books/Malec.5743.13.1/sec�ons/sec1.5#sec1.5) In a highly influen�al book published in the 1960s, the sociologist Erving Goffman (1963) defined s�gma as an unusual characteris�c that triggers a nega�ve evalua�on. In his words, "The s�gma�zed person is one who is reduced in our minds from a whole and usual person to a tainted, discounted one" (1963, p. 3). People's beliefs about s�gma�zed characteris�cs exist largely in the eye of the beholder but have substan�al influence on social interac�ons with the s�gma�zed (see Snyder, Tanke, & Berscheid, 1977). A large research tradi�on in psychology has been devoted to understanding both the origins of s�gma and the consequences of being s�gma�zed. According to Goffman and others, the characteris�cs associated with the greatest degree of s�gma have three features in common: They are highly visible, they are perceived as controllable, and they are misunderstood by the public. Recently, researchers have taken considerable interest in people's a�tudes toward members of the gay and lesbian community. Although these a�tudes have become more posi�ve over �me, this group s�ll encounters harassment and other forms of discrimina�on on a regular basis (see Na�onal Gay Task Force, 1984). One of the top recognized experts on this subject is Gregory Herek, professor of psychology at the University of California at Davis (h�p://psychology.ucdavis.edu/herek/ (h�p://psychology.ucdavis.edu/herek/) ). In a 1988 ar�cle, Herek conducted a survey of heterosexuals' a�tudes toward both lesbians and gay men, with the goal of understanding the predictors of nega�ve a�tudes. Herek approached this research ques�on by construc�ng a scale to measure a�tudes toward these groups. In three studies, par�cipants were asked to complete this a�tude measure, along with other exis�ng scales assessing a�tudes about gender roles, religion, and tradi�onal ideologies. Herek's (1988) research revealed that, as hypothesized, heterosexual males tended to hold more nega�ve a�tudes about gay men and lesbians than heterosexual females. However, the same psychological mechanisms seemed to explain the prejudice in both genders. That is, nega�ve a�tudes were associated with increased religiosity, more tradi�onal beliefs about family and gender, and fewer experiences actually interac�ng with gay men and lesbians. These associa�ons meant that Herek could predict people's a�tudes toward gay men and lesbians based on knowing their views about family, gender, and religion, as well as their past interac�ons with the s�gma�zed group. Herek's primary contribu�on to the literature in this paper was the insight that reducing s�gma toward gay men and lesbians "may require confron�ng deeply held, socially reinforced values" (1988, p. 473). And this insight was possible only because people were asked to report these values directly. https://content.ashford.edu/books/Malec.5743.13.1/sections/sec1.1#sec1.1 https://content.ashford.edu/books/Malec.5743.13.1/sections/sec1.2#sec1.2 https://content.ashford.edu/books/Malec.5743.13.1/sections/sec1.3#sec1.3 https://content.ashford.edu/books/Malec.5743.13.1/sections/sec1.4#sec1.4 https://content.ashford.edu/books/Malec.5743.13.1/sections/sec1.5#sec1.5 http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/herek/ 4.1 Introduc�on to Survey Research Whether you are aware of it or not, you have been encountering survey research for most of your life. Every �me your telephone rings during dinner�me, and the person on the other end of the line insists on knowing your household income and favorite brand of laundry detergent, he or she is helping to conduct survey research. When news programs try to predict the winner of an elec�on two weeks early, these reports are based on survey research of eligible voters. In both cases, the researcher is trying to make predic�ons about the products people buy or the candidates they will elect based on people's reports of their own a�tudes, feelings, and behaviors. Surveys can be used in a variety of contexts and are most appropriate for ques�ons that involve people describing their a�tudes, their behaviors, or a combina�on of the two. For example, if you wanted to examine the predictors of a�tudes toward the death penalty, you could ask people their opinions on this topic and also ask them about their poli�cal party affilia�on. Based on these responses, you could test whether poli�cal affilia�on predicted a�tudes toward the death penalty. Or, imagine you wanted to know whether students who spent more �me studying were more likely to do well on their exams. This ques�on could be answered using a survey that asked students about their study habits and then tracked their exam grades. We will return to this example near the end of the chapter as we discuss the process of analyzing survey data to test our hypotheses about predic�ons. The common thread running through these two examples is that they require people to report either their thoughts (e.g., opinions about the death penalty) or their behaviors (e.g., the hours they spend studying). Thus, in deciding whether a survey is the best fit for your research ques�on, the key is to consider whether people will be both able and willing to report these things accurately. We will expand on both of these issues in the next sec�on. In this chapter, we con�nue our journey along the con�nuum of control, moving on to survey research, in which the primary goal is either describing or predic�ng a�tudes and behavior. For our purposes, survey research refers to any method that relies on people's reports of their own a�tudes, feelings, and behaviors. So, for example, in Herek's (1988) study, the par�cipants reported their a�tudes toward lesbians and gay men, rather than these a�tudes being somehow directly observed by the researchers. Compared with the qualita�ve and descrip�ve designs for observing behavior we discussed in Chapter 3, survey research tends to yield more control over both data collec�on and ques�on content. Thus, survey research falls somewhere between quan�ta�ve descrip�ve research (Chapter 3) and the explanatory research involved in experimental designs (Chapter 5). This chapter provides an overview of survey research from conceptualiza�on through analysis. We will cover the types of research ques�ons that are best suited to survey research and provide an overview of the decisions to consider in designing and conduc�ng a survey study. We will then cover the process of data collec�on, with a focus on selec�ng the people who will complete your survey. Finally, we will cover the three most common approaches for analyzing survey data, bringing us back full circle to addressing our research ques�ons. Distinguishing Features of Surveys Survey research designs have three dis�nguishing features that set them apart from other designs. First, all survey research relies on either wri�en or verbal self- reports of people's a�tudes, feelings, and behaviors. This means that researchers will ask par�cipants a series of ques�ons and record their responses. This approach has several advantages, including being rela�vely straigh�orward and allowing access to psychological processes (e.g., "Why do you support candidate X?"). However, researchers are also cau�ous in their interpreta�on of self-reported data because par�cipants' responses can reflect a combina�on of their true a�tude and their concern over how this a�tude will be perceived. Scien�sts refer to this as social desirability, which means that people may be reluctant to report unpopular a�tudes. So if you were to ask people their a�tudes about different racial groups, their answers might reflect both their true a�tude and their desire not to appear racist. We return to the issue of social desirability and discuss some tricks for designing ques�ons that can help to sidestep these concerns and capture respondents' true a�tudes. The second dis�nguishing feature of survey research is that it has the ability to access internal states that cannot be measured through direct observa�on. In our discussion of observa�onal designs in Chapter 3, we learned that one of the limita�ons of these designs was a lack of insight into why people do what they do. Survey research is able to address this limita�on directly: By asking people what they think, how they feel, and why they behave in certain ways, researchers come closer to capturing the underlying psychological processes. However, people's reports of their internal states should be taken with a grain of salt, for three reasons. First, as men�oned, these reports may be biased by social desirability concerns, par�cularly when unpopular a�tudes are involved. Second, there is a large literature in social psychology sugges�ng that people may not be very accurate at understanding the true reasons for their behavior. In a highly cited review paper, psychologists Richard Nisbe� and Tim Wilson (1977) argued that we make poor guesses about why we do things, and those guesses are based more on our assump�ons than on any real introspec�on. Thus, survey ques�ons can provide access to internal states, but these should always be interpreted with cau�on. Third, on a more prac�cal note, survey research allows us to collect large amounts of data with rela�vely li�le effort and few resources. However, their actual efficiency depends on the decisions made during the design process. In reality, efficiency is o�en in a delicate balance with the accuracy and completeness of the data. Broadly speaking, survey research can be conducted using either verbal or wri�en self-reports (or a combina�on of the two). Before we dive into the details of wri�ng and forma�ng a survey, it is important to understand the pros and cons of administering your survey as an interview (i.e., an oral survey) or a ques�onnaire (i.e., a wri�en survey). Interviews An interview involves an oral ques�on-and-answer exchange between the researcher and the par�cipant. This exchange can take place either face-to-face or over the phone. So our telemarketer example from earlier in the chapter represents an interview because the ques�ons are asked orally, via phone. Likewise, if you are approached in a shopping mall and asked to answer ques�ons about your favorite products, you are experiencing a survey in interview form because the ques�ons are administered out loud. And, if you have ever taken part in a focus group, in which a group of people gives their reac�ons to a new product, the researchers are Conduc�ng interviews may allow a researcher to gather more detailed and richer responses. Alina Solovyova-Vincent/E+/Ge�y Images essen�ally conduc�ng an interview with the group. (For a more in-depth discussion of focus groups and other interview techniques, see Chapter 3, Sec�on 3.2 (h�p://content.thuzelearning.com/books/Malec.5743.13.1/sec�ons/sec3.2#sec3.2) , Qualita�ve Research Interviews.) Interview Schedules Regardless of how the interview is administered, the interviewer (i.e., the researcher) has a predetermined plan, or script, for how the interview should go. This plan, or script, for the progress of the interview is known as an interview schedule. When conduc�ng an interview— including those telemarke�ng calls—the researcher/interviewer has a detailed plan for the order of ques�ons to be asked, along with follow-up ques�ons depending on the par�cipant's responses. Broadly speaking, there are two types of interview schedules. A linear (also called "structured") schedule will ask the same ques�ons in the same order for all par�cipants. In contrast, a branching schedule unfolds more like a flowchart, with the next ques�on dependent on par�cipants' answers. A branching schedule is typically used in cases with follow-up ques�ons that make sense only for some of the par�cipants. For example, you might first ask people whether they have children; if they answer "yes," you could then follow up by asking how many. One danger in using a branching schedule is that it is based partly on your assump�ons about the rela�onships between variables. Granted, it is fairly uncontroversial to ask only people with children to indicate how many children they have. But imagine the following scenario in which you first ask par�cipants for their household income, and then ask about their poli�cal dona�ons: "How much money do you make? $18,000? Okay, how likely are you to donate money to the Democra�c Party?" "How much money do you make? $250,000? Okay, how likely are you to donate money to the Republican Party?" The assump�on implicit in the way these ques�ons branch is that wealthier people are more likely to be Republicans and less wealthy people to be Democrats. This might be supported by the data or it might not. But by planning the follow-up ques�ons in this way, you are unable to capture cases that do not fit your stereotypes (i.e., the wealthy Democrats and the poor Republicans). The lesson here is to be careful about le�ng your biases shape the data collec�on process, as this can create invalid or inaccurate findings. Advantages and Disadvantages of Interviews Spoken interviews have a number of advantages over wri�en surveys. For one, people are o�en more mo�vated to talk than they are to write. Let's say that an undergraduate research assistant is dispatched to a local shopping mall to interview people about their experiences in roman�c rela�onships. The researcher may have no trouble at all recrui�ng par�cipants, many of whom will be eager to divulge the personal details about their recent rela�onships. But for be�er or for worse, these experiences will be more difficult for the researcher to capture in wri�ng. Related to this observa�on, people's oral responses are typically richer and more detailed than their wri�en responses. Think of the difference between asking someone to "Describe your views on gun control" versus "Indicate on a scale of 1 to 7 the degree to which you support gun control." The former is more likely to capture the richness and subtlety involved in people's a�tudes about guns. On a prac�cal note, using an interview format also allows you to ensure that respondents understand the ques�ons. If wri�en ques�onnaire items are poorly worded, people are forced to guess at your meaning, and these guesses introduce a big source of error variance (variance from random sources that are irrelevant to the trait or ability the ques�onnaire is purpor�ng to measure). But if an interview ques�on is poorly asked, people find it much easier to ask the interviewer to clarify. Finally, using an interview format allows you to reach a broader cross-sec�on of people and to include those who are unable to read and write—or, perhaps, unable to read and write the language of your survey. Interviews also have three clear disadvantages compared with wri�en surveys. First, interviews are more costly in terms of both �me and money. It certainly used more of my �me to go to a shopping mall than it would have taken to mail out packets of surveys (but no more money—these research assistant gigs tend to be unpaid!). Second, the interview format allows many opportuni�es to glean personal bias from the interview. These biases are unlikely to be deliberate, but par�cipants can o�en pick up on body language and subtle facial expressions when the interviewer disagrees with their answers. These cues may lead them to shape their responses in order to make the interviewer happier (the influence of social desirability again). Third, interviews can be difficult to score and interpret, especially with open-ended ques�ons. Although administering them may be easy, scoring them is rela�vely more complicated, o�en involving subjec�vity or bias in the interpreta�on. Because the researcher o�en has to make judgments based on personal beliefs about the quality of the response, mul�ple raters are generally used to score the responses in order to minimize bias. The best way to understand the pros and cons of interviewing is that both are a consequence of personal interac�ons. The interac�on between interviewer and interviewee allows for richer responses but also the poten�al for these responses to be biased. As a researcher, you have to weigh these pros and cons and decide which method is the best fit for your survey. In the next sec�on, we turn our a�en�on to the process of administering surveys in wri�ng. Questionnaires A ques�onnaire is a survey that involves a wri�en ques�on-and-answer exchange between the researcher and the par�cipant. The ques�onnaire can be in open- ended format (e.g., the par�cipant writes in his or her answer) or forced-choice response format (e.g., the par�cipant selects from a set of responses, such as with mul�ple choice ques�ons, ra�ng scales, or true/false ques�ons), which will be discussed later in this chapter. The exchange is a bit different from what we saw with https://content.ashford.edu/books/Malec.5743.13.1/sections/sec3.2#sec3.2 interview formats. In wri�en surveys, the ques�ons are designed ahead of �me and then given to par�cipants, who write their responses and return the ques�onnaire to the researcher. In the next sec�on, we will discuss details for designing these ques�ons. But before we get there, let's take a quick look at the process of administering wri�en surveys. Distribu�on Methods Ques�onnaires can be distributed in three primary ways, each with its own pa�ern of advantages and disadvantages. Distribu�ng by Mail Un�l recently, one common way to distribute surveys was to send paper copies through the mail to a group of par�cipants (see Sec�on 4.3, Sampling From the Popula�on, for more discussion on how this group is selected). Mailing surveys is rela�vely inexpensive and rela�vely easy to do, but is unfortunately one of the worst methods when it comes to response rates. People tend to ignore ques�onnaires they receive in the mail, dismissing them as one more piece of junk. There are a few tricks available to researchers to increase response rates, including providing incen�ves, making the survey interes�ng, and making it as easy as possible to return the results (e.g., with a postage-paid envelope). However, even using all of these tricks, researchers consider themselves extremely lucky to get a 30% response rate from a mail survey. That is, if you mail 1,000 surveys, you will be doing well to receive 300 back. Because of this low return on investment, researchers have begun using other methods for their wri�en surveys. Distribu�ng in Person Another op�on is to distribute a wri�en survey in person, simply handing out copies and asking par�cipants to fill them out on the spot. This method is certainly more �me-consuming, as a researcher has to be sta�oned for long periods of �me in order to collect data. In addi�on, people are less likely to answer the ques�ons honestly because the presence of a researcher makes them worry about social desirability. Last, the sample for this method is limited to people who are in the physical area at the �me that ques�onnaires are being handed out. As we will discuss later, this might lead to problems in the composi�on of the sample. On the plus side, however, this method tends to result in higher compliance rates because it is harder to say no to someone face-to-face than it is to ignore a piece of mail. Distribu�ng Online Over the past 20 years, Internet, or Web-based, surveys have become increasingly common. In Web-based survey research, the ques�onnaire is designed and posted on a Web page, to which par�cipants are directed in order to complete the ques�onnaire. The advantages of online distribu�on are clear: This method is easiest for both researchers and par�cipants and may give people a greater sense of anonymity, thereby encouraging more honest responses. In addi�on, response �mes are faster and the data are easier to analyze because they are already in digital format. The disadvantages include the following: Specific groups being underrepresented because they do not have access to the Internet, the researcher has li�le to no control over sample selec�on, and the researcher receives responses only from those who are interested in the topic—so-called self-selec�on bias. All these limita�ons could raise ques�ons about the validity and reliability of the data collected. In addi�on, several ethical issues might arise regarding informed consent and the privacy of par�cipants. So when considering conduc�ng Web-based surveys, researchers should evaluate all the advantages and disadvantages, as well as any ethical or legal implica�ons. For readers interested in more informa�on on designing and conduc�ng Internet research, Sam Gosling and John Johnson's 2010 book Advanced Methods for Conduc�ng Online Behavioral Research is an excellent resource. In addi�on, several groups of psychological researchers have been a�emp�ng to understand the psychology of Internet users. (You can read about recent studies on this website (h�p://www.spring.org.uk/2010/10/internet-psychology.php) .) Advantages and Disadvantages of Ques�onnaires Just as with interview methods, wri�en ques�onnaires have their own set of advantages and disadvantages. Wri�en surveys allow researchers to collect large amounts of data with li�le cost or effort, and they can offer a greater degree of anonymity than interviews. Anonymity can be a par�cular advantage in dealing with sensi�ve or poten�ally embarrassing topics. That is, people may be more willing to answer a ques�onnaire about their alcohol use or their sexual history than they would be to discuss these things face-to-face with an interviewer. On the downside, wri�en surveys miss out on the advantages of interviews because no one is available to clarify confusing ques�ons or to gather more informa�on as needed. Fortunately, there is one rela�vely easy way to minimize this problem: Write ques�ons (and response choices, if using mul�ple choice or forced choice formats) that are as clear as possible. In the next sec�on, we turn our a�en�on to the process of designing ques�onnaires. http://www.spring.org.uk/2010/10/internet-psychology.php Simple language is one characteris�c of an effec�ve ques�onnaire. iStockphoto/Thinkstock 4.2 Designing Ques�onnaires One of the most important elements when conduc�ng survey research is deciding how to construct and assemble the ques�onnaire items. In some cases, you will be able to use ques�onnaires that other researchers have developed in order to answer your research ques�ons. For example, many psychology researchers use standard scales that measure behavior or personality traits, such as self-esteem, prejudice, depression, or stress levels. The advantage of these ready-made measures is that other people have already gone to the trouble of making sure they are valid and reliable. So if you are interested in the rela�onship between stress and depression, you could distribute the Perceived Stress Scale (Cohen, Kamarck, & Mermelstein, 1983) and the Beck Depression Inventory (Beck, Steer, Ball, & Ranieri, 1996) to a group of par�cipants and move on to the fun part of data analyses. For further discussion, see Chapter 2, Sec�on 2.2 (h�p://content.thuzelearning.com/books/Malec.5743.13.1/sec�ons/sec2.2#sec2.2) , Reliability and Validity. However, in many cases there is no perfect measure for your research ques�on—either because no one has studied the topic before or because the …