DON HONORIO VENTURA STATE UNIVERSITY

Department of Psychology
AY: 2023-2024 (2ND SEMESTER)

CHAPTER 4:

Alternatives to experimentation:
SURVEYS AND INTERVIEWS
CARMELA V. ESPINOZA, RPM.
OBJECTIVES

• Learn more nonexperimental techniques for studying behavior: survey and

interview research

• Learn the factors involved in designing questionnaires and devising good

questions.

• Learn how to administer questionnaires and conduct interviews

• Learn the pros and cons of different sampling technique

 TOPICS
• Survey Research
• Constructing Surveys
• Measuring Responses
• Selecting Level of
Measurement
• Important Considerations for
Survey Items
• Collecting Survey Data
• Evaluating Surveys and Survey
Data
• Sampling
• Probability Sampling
• Simple Random Sampling
• Systematic Random
Sampling
• Stratified Random Sampling
• Cluster Sampling
• Nonprobability Sampling
• Quota Sampling
• Convenience Sampling
• Purposive Sampling
• Snowball Sampling
• Reporting Samples
 SURVEY RESEARCH
• A useful way of obtaining information about
people’s opinions, attitudes, preferences and
behaviors simply by asking.
• Allows us to gather data about experiences, feelings,
thoughts and motives that are difficult to observe
directly.
• Anonymity
• Allows us to gather large amount of data efficiently
• Two most common survey techniques in psychology:
questionnaires and interviews
 CONSTRUCTING SURVEYS
1.Map out your objectives
-make them as specific as possible
ex: To measure the attitudes of other
psychology students toward animal research
in psychology
✓ specify aspect of animal research: animal
rights, animal welfare, benefits to humanity,
pain and suffering, humane treatment,
euthanasia, different species, animals used for
class demonstrations
✓ Look at surveys that other researchers have
conducted
2.Design survey items
-Decide how you are going to address
the imposition of units
▪ Closed questions (aka structured questions)
- answerable by “yes” or “no ”; or by a scale
ex: “Do you smoke?”
“ On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you like
classical music?”
▪ Open-ended questions (aka open questions)
-solicit information about opinions and feelings by
asking the question in such a way that the person
must respond with more than “yes’ or “no” or 1-10
rating
ex: “What are your thoughts about animal rights?”
“What made you decide to come for treatment?”
 open ended questions cont.
Content analysis- responses are assigned to
categories that are created from the data
according to objective rules or guidelines.

Ex: “What kind of things might cause you to hit

someone?”
categories of responses could be:
o Someone looked at me funny
o Someone said something to me that I didn’t like
o Someone wouldn’t give me what I wanted
o Someone hit me first
o Other responses
How to write good survey questions:

▪ keep items simple and keep people involved

▪ Avoid ambiguous statements or questions
Ex: “Have you ever considered the idea of
abortion?”
▪ Use language that is easy to understand, but if
you cannot avoid a term that many people
won’t understand, make sure you define it in the
question.
▪ Avoid double-barreled (or compound) questions
which ask for responses about two or more
different ideas in the same question.
ex: “ Do you like strawberries and cream?”
How to write good survey questions (cont..):

▪ Response items should be exhaustive- they

need to contain all possible options
Add a response category labeled “Other
__”
▪ If the question requires more than six or
seven response
options, use open-ended response format
(Suskie, 1992).
Ex: “What is your occupation?”
 MEASURING RESPONSES
• Level of Measurement – the kind of scale used to measure a
response.
- determines the statistical test that will be used
- come into play whenever we design a strategy for
measuring behavior

Nominal Scale Ordinal Scale Interval Scale Ratio Scale

PROPERTIES OF A SCALE
Magnitude
Equal Intervals
Absolute 0
 MAGNITUDE
Magnitude is the property of “moreness”. A scale has the property of magnitude if we
can say that a particular instance of the attribute represents more, less or equal amounts
of the given quantity than does another instance.
Ex:
Height – if we can say that John is taller than Fred, then the scale has the
property of magnitude.

A scale that does not have this property is, for example, when a gym coach
assigns identification numbers to teams in league (team 1, team 2, team 3
etc.).Because the numbers only label the teams, they do not have the
property of the magnitude.
EQUAL INTERVALS
A scale has the property of equal intervals if the difference between two points at
any place on the scale has the same meaning as the difference between two other
points that differ by the same number of scale units.

Ex:
 The difference between inch 2 and inch 4 on a ruler represents the same
quantity as the difference between inch 10 and inch 12: exactly 2 inches.
 80 degrees is always higher than 50 degrees and the difference between
these two temperatures is the same as the difference between 70 degrees
and 40 degrees
ABSOLUTE 0
An absolute 0 is obtained when nothing of the property
being measured exists.
Ex:
If you are measuring heart rate and observe that your patient
has a rate of 0 and has died, then you would conclude that
there is no heart rate at all.
 Absolute 0

Interval

0
 NOMINAL ORDINAL

• Named variables • Named

• Exhaustive and • Ordered/Ranked
mutually exclusive variables

RATIO
INTERVAL
• Named
• Ordered/Ranked
• Named
• Proportionate interval
• Ordered/Ranked
between variables
• Proportionate interval
• Can accommodate
between variables
absolute zero
 NOMINAL
ORDINAL
ex: What isNOMINAL
your Civil Status? Ex: Qualifying exam results:
❑ Single
NOMINAL
What is your nationality?
❑ Married
❑ Widowed
1.
2.
ORDINAL
Peter
Theodore
92.03%
90.01%
___________________
❑ Separated 3. Ana 89.08%
❑ Others 4. Jesse 88.40%
5. Mikel 88.00%

INTERVAL RATIO
Ex:
Ex: temperature scales( Celcius,
RATIO
Fahrenheit)
INTERVAL RATIO
NeurologicalEx:
test for impairment-
Weight
80 degrees is always higher than 50 score of zeroHeight
in these kinds of
degrees and the difference between tests means you do not have a
these two temperatures is the same as
neurological impairment
the difference between 70 degrees
and 40 degrees
 MAGNITUDE EQUAL ABSOLUTE
INTERVAL ZERO
NOMINAL X X X
ORDINAL ✓ X X
INTERVAL ✓ ✓ X
RATIO ✓ ✓ ✓
 SELECTING LEVELS OF MEASUREMENT
• Psychological variables lend themselves to different levels of measurement
because they
represent a continuous dimensions (traits, attitudes, and preferences).
ex: Sociability can range from very unsociable to very sociable

When different levels of measurement “fit” equally well,

choose the highest level possible because it provides more
information about a response.
IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS FOR SURVEY ITEMS
• Use ranges: income, age
What is your age?
❑ 18- 24
❑ 25-44
❑ 45-64
❑ 65 years and over
• Make sure questions are not value laden
- do not make questions in ways that
would make a positive (or negative)
response seem embarrassing or
undesirable.
• Begin survey with questions that
people
will not mind answering.
• First few questions:
1. subjects do not have to think a great
deal
2. subjects are able to answer without
saying, “I don’t know”
3. subjects will think are relevant to
the topic of the survey.
RESPONSE STYLES
- Tendencies to respond to questions or test items in
specific ways, regardless of the content
➢ Willingness to answer
➢ Position Preference
➢ Manifest Content
➢ Yea-sayers (response acquiescence)
➢ Nay-sayers (response deviation )
• Pretest questions before actual data collection

can catch context effects- sometime the position of a

question- where it falls within a question order- can
influence how the question is interpreted
- buffer items- questions unrelated to either of the
related questions
Imagine you want subjects to rate Britney Spears on the following semantic differential item:
Nice _ _ _ _ _ Nasty

Now imagine that the nice/nasty item fell here in your questionnaire:
Not Sexy _ _ _ _ _ Sexy
Nice _ _ _ _ _ Nasty

In the context of the not sexy/sexy item, the nice/nasty items is more likely to be interpreted
in a sexual way than it would if it fell here:
Kind _ _ _ _ _ Cruel
Nice _ _ _ _ _ Nasty
C O L L E C T I N G S U RV E Y DATA
Self Administered Questionnaires Mail Surveys
Computer and Internet Surveys Telephone Surveys
Interviews Focus Groups
 SELF ADMINISTERED
QUESTIONNAIRES
✓ simple instructions
✓ possibility of reactivity if administered in person (fill out in private,
if possible)
✓ Identifying data→ social desirability response (giving favorable
answers)
✓Group sessions- weigh pros and cons, may not take it seriously,
more time talking to each other unless strangers
MAIL SURVEYS
✓ provide a polite and professional cover
letter
✓Anonymity
✓Small gift can increase return rate (Fowler,
1993)
✓ Incentive technique- raffle
✓ Take note of the unreturned mails- report
later
COMPUTER AND INTERNET
SURVEYS
Advantages
• Easy access of large population
• Low expenses, reduced time in data entry
• Ease of administration, flexible
Disadvantages:
• Nonresponse
• You cannot see your subjects (are they adults r children;
male or female)
• subjects may take it multiple times
TELEPHONE SURVEYS

Advantages
• Easy access of large population Disadvantage:
• Nonresponse
Special considerations:
• Skilled interviewer
 INTERVIEWS
• One of the best way to gather high quality
data
• Interviewer must be thoroughly trained
• Establish rapport
• Avoid judgmental statements
• Keep interview flowing
• Subtle change in tone of voice and behavior can
influence response
• Structured/ unstructured interview
 FOCUS GROUPS
• Are usually small groups of people with similar characteristics (e.g., all women, all
young black men, all university students, all working class people etc.,) who are
brought together by an interviewer, called a facilitator, who guides the group in a
discussion of specific issues.
• open- ended questions, usually
• Often employed in qualitative researches
EVALUATING SURVEYS
AND SURVEY DATA
RELIABILITY VALIDITY
• Extent to which the survey is • Extent to which a survey actually
consistent and repeatable measures the intended topic
• a reliable survey has 3 qualities:
❖ Responses to similar questions in the
➢ survey should be consistent
❖ survey should generate very similar
responses across different survey
givers
❖ Survey should generate similar
responses if it is given to same person
more than once
SAMPLING
 POPULATION
- Consists of all people, animals,
or objects that have at least
one characteristic in common
- Example:
- All undergraduates
- All nursing home residents
- All front liners during the Covid 19
pandemic
SAMPLE
- A group that is a subset of the
population of interest
- Representativeness- how closely the
sample mirrors the larger population-
more precisely, how precisely our sample
responses we observe and measure
reflect those we would obtain if we could
sample the whole population
 2 GENERAL SAMPLING APPROACHES

Probability Sampling Nonprobability Sampling

• Simple Random Sampling • Quota Sampling

• Systematic Random Sampling • Convenience Sampling
• Stratified Random Sampling • Purposive Sampling
• Cluster Sampling • Snowball Sampling
• Reporting Samples
PROBABILITY SAMPLING
Involves selecting subjects in such a way that the odds of their being in
the study are known or can be calculated
• Define the population that you want to study
• The researcher must use an unbiased method for selecting subjects

Probability- study of the likelihood of events

Random Selection- any member of the population has an equal
opportunity to be selected.
 PROBABILITY SAMPLING
➢Simple Random Sampling
➢Systematic Random Sampling
➢Stratified Random Sampling
➢Cluster Sampling
 SIMPLE RANDOM SAMPLING
• All members of the population being studied
must have an equal chance of being selected.
• If there are 1 million people in the population, the
chance of any particular person being selected
should equal 1 in a million.
S Y S T E M AT I C R A N D O M S A M P L I N G
• In case where all the members of the population are known
and can be listed in an unbiased way, a researcher may select
every nth person from the population.

Population of sophomore students= 5,000

You would like a sample of 250 people

5000 divide by 250 = 20 (n)

Select every 20th person
 S T R AT I F I E D R A N D O M S A M P L I N G

• Population contains distinct groups .

• Obtained by random sampling from people in each subgroup
in the same proportions as they exist in the population.
• Advantage: A well represented sample
SAMPLE=
 CLUSTER SAMPLING

• Preferred when: population of interest is very large

• Sample entire clusters or naturally occurring groups
that exist within the population
• Participants are randomly selected but whole groups of
people are selected rather than individuals.
2A 2B 2C

2D 2E 2F
2A

2E
N O N P RO BA B I L I T Y S A M P L I N G

Quota Sampling
• Subjects
Convenience
are not Sampling
chosen by Sampling
Purposive
random
Snowball Sampling
Quota Sampling
-Researcher selects sample
through predetermined quotas
that are intended to reflect the
makeup of the population.
-not representative
-As long as the quota is met
CONVENIENCE SAMPLING
- Obtained by using any groups who
happen to be available – for example, a
church choir, a psychology class, a
supermarket check out line
- -weak control of sampling because
researcher has no control over
representativeness of sample
- Limited external validity
PURPOSIVE SAMPLING SNOWBALL SAMPLING

- When nonrandom samples are

- A researcher locates one or a few
selected because the individuals
reflect a specific purpose of the people who fit the sample criterion and
asks these people who fit the sample
study
criterion and asks these people to
- Ex: You want to measure the locate or lead them to additional
success of a new training individuals.
program for employees in two
departments (sales dept. and
human resources dept. )
REPORTING SAMPLES
WHAT INFORMATION TO INCLUDE IN REPORTING
SAMPLES?
✓ Explain the type of sample used and how subjects were recruited (so that
results can be interpreted properly)
▪ Identify specific population sampled
▪ Give exact description where and how subjects were obtained
▪ Important demographic characteristics if they are important in interpreting the results
✓ What has influenced the subjects to participate?
✓ Limitations of who couldn’t participate

generalizability