In organizational development, carefully constructed survey instruments are often used as the basis for data gathering, organizational diagnosis, and subsequent action planning. Some OD practitioners (e.g. Fred Nickols) even consider survey guided development as the sine qua non of OD.
Advantages of Surveys The advantages include:
- It is an efficient way of collecting information from a large number of respondents. Very large samples are possible. Statistical techniques can be used to determine validity, reliability, and statistical significance.
- Surveys are flexible in the sense that a wide range of information can be collected. They can be used to study attitudes, values, beliefs, and past behaviours.
- Because they are standardized, they are relatively free from several types of errors.
- They are relatively easy to administer.
- There is an economy in data collection due to the focus provided by standardized questions. Only questions of interest to the researcher are asked, recorded, codified, and analyzed. Time and money is not spent on tangential questions.
Disadvantages of Surveys The disadvantages include:
- They depend on subjects’ motivation, honesty, memory, and ability to respond. Subjects may not be aware of their reasons for any given action. They may have forgotten their reasons. They may not be motivated to give accurate answers, in fact, they may be motivated to give answers that present themselves in a favorable light.
- Surveys are not appropriate for studying complex social phenomena. The individual is not the best unit of analysis in these cases. Surveys do not give a full sense of social processes and the analysis seems superficial.
- Structured surveys, particularly those with closed ended questions, may have low validity when researching affective variables.
- Survey samples are usually self-selected, and therefore non-probability samples from which the characteristics of the population sampled cannot be inferred.
via [ Simple Survey ] [ Blog Panel ]
Online Simple Surveys
- can use web or e-mail
- - web is preferred over e-mail because interactive HTML forms can be used
- response rates sometimes 90% before 2000, but have been dropping fast since then (now 2% - 30%)
- often inexpensive to administer
- very fast results
- easy to modify
- response rates can be improved by using panels - members of the panel have agreed to participate
- if not password-protected, easy to manipulate by completing multiple times to skew results
Tactics used to increase response rates
- brevity - single page if possible
- financial incentives
- - prepaid in advance
- - paid at completion
- non-monetary incentives
- - commodity giveaways (pens, notepads)
- - entry into a lottery, draw or contest
- - discount coupons
- foot-in-the-door techniques - start with a small inconsequential request
- personalization of the request - address specific individuals
- follow-up requests - multiple requests
- claimed affiliation with universities, research institutions, or charities
- emotional appeals
- bids for sympathy
via [ Simple Survey ] [ Blog Panel ]
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