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COMMUNICATION 18: COMMUNICATION RESEARCH

LESSON 3: MIDTERM
PART III: RESEARCH APPROACHES

Survey Research PART 1

Surveys popularly used by researchers:

Public opinion polls

TWO KINDS OF SURVEY:

1. Descriptive
2. Analytical

DESCRIPTIVE (WHAT)

Attempts to picture or document current conditions or attitudes – that is, to describe what
exists at the moment.

Researchers are interested in discovering the current situation in a given area.

ANALYTICAL (WHY)

Attempts to describe and explain why certain situations exist.

Two or more variables are usually examined to test research hypotheses.

The results allow researchers to examine the interrelationships among variables and to
draw explanatory inferences.

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF SURVEY RESEARCH:

Advantage:

1. They can be used to investigate problems in realistic settings.

2. The cost of surveys is reasonable considering the amount of information gathered.

Four major types of surveys: mail, telephone, personal interview and group
administration.
3. Large amounts of data can be collected with relative ease from a variety of people.

Survey technique allows researchers to examine many variables (demographic and
lifestyle information, attitudes, motives, intentions and so on) and to use multivariate
statistics to analyze the data.

Geographic boundaries do not limit most surveys.
4. Data helpful to survey research already exist.

Data archives, government documents, census materials, radio and television, rating
books and voter registration lists – primary or secondary sources
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Archives data as source of an entire survey study is free from using a questionnaire or
even contacting a single respondent.

Disadvantage:

1. Independent variable cannot be manipulated the way they are in laboratory experiments.

Researcher cannot be certain whether the relationships between independent and
dependent variables are causal and non-causal.

Causality is difficult to establish because many intervening and extraneous
variables are involved.

Time series studies can sometimes help – panel, trend studies
2. Inappropriate wording or placement of questions within a questionnaire can bias results.

Questions must be worded and placed unambiguously to elicit the desired
information.
3. In most telephone studies, the potential problem of talking to the wrong people.
4. Difficult to conduct.

More and more people are unwilling to participate in legitimate studies for fear of
attempts by the interviewer to tell something.

Despite of the disadvantages, SURVEYS can produce reliable and useful information.
SURVEY is useful for collecting information on audiences and readership.

CONSTRUCTING QUESTIONS:

Basic Considerations:

1. Questions must clearly and unambiguously communicate the desired information to the
respondent.
2. Questions should be worded to allow accurate transmission of respondent’ answers to
researchers.

Questionnaire design depends on the choice of data collection technique:

Mail survey – must be easy to read and understand, since respondents are
unable to obtain explanations.
Telephone survey – cannot use questions with long lists of response
options; the respondents may forget the first few responses by the time the
last ones have been read.
Group administration – questions written be concise and easy for the
respondents to answer.

Design of questionnaire must always reflect the basic purpose of research.

TYPES OF QUESTIONS
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1. Open-ended – requires respondent to generate their own answers.

Allow respondents freedom in answering questions and an opportunity to provide
in-depth responses.

They give the researcher opportunity to ask: “Why did you say that?” or “Could
you explain your answer in more detail?”

Flexibility to follow-up on, or probe, certain questions enables the interviewers to
gather information about the respondents’ feelings and the motives behind their
answers.

Allow for answers that researchers did not foresee in designing questionnaire.

Useful in pilot version of a study.

Responses may not know what type what types of responses to expect from
subjects to answer in any way they wish.

Saves time and resources.

DISADVANTAGE: amount of time needed to collect and analyze the responses.
This require that interviewers spend time writing down answers.

Content analysis of each open-ended question must be completed and tabulated.

Makes the question close-ended.

Content analysis results are used to produce a codebook (menu or list of
quantified responses)

2. Close-ended questions – respondents select an answer from a list provided by the

researcher.

Provide greater uniformity of response because the answers are easily
quantified.

DISADVANTAGE: researchers often fail to include some important
responses. Respondents may have and answer different from those that are
supplied.

One way to solve the problem is to include an “OTHER” response followed
by a “blank space” to give respondents an opportunity to supply their own
answer.

“OTHER” responses are to be content analyzed just like those of open-ended
question.

A pilot study or pretest of questionnaire usually solves most problems with
closed-ended questions.

PROBLEMS IN INTERPRETING
“Open-ended” Questions:

Some interviewers have difficulty understanding respondents.

Researchers must interpret the answers and determine which code is appropriate.

GENERAL GUIDELINES
- Do’s and Dont’s

1. Make question clear.

2. Keep questions short.
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3. Remember the purposes of the research.

4. Do not ask double-barreled questions.

Double-barreled question is one that asks two or more questions in the same
sentence.
5. Avoid biased words or terms.
6. Avoid leading questions.

A leading question is one that suggests a certain response either literally or by
implication or contains a hidden premise.
7. Do not use questions that ask for highly detailed information.
8. Avoid potentially embarrassing questions unless absolutely necessary.

RESPONSE AND QUESTION TYPES AND FORMS:

a. Dichotomous response – “agree/disagree” or “yes/no”

b. Multiple-choice question – allows respondents to choose an answer from several options.
c. Rating scale – widely used in mass media research.
d. Semantic differential scales – another form of rating scale frequently used to rate persons,
concepts or objects. These scales are bipolar adjectives with seven scale points.
e. Rank-ordering technique – relative perception of concepts or items.
f. Checklist question – often used in pilot study to refine questions for the final project.
g. Forced-choice questions – designed to gather information about lifestyles and they are listed
always in pairs.
h. Fill-in-the-blank – questions are used infrequently by survey researchers.
i. Feeling thermometer – which is patterned after a normal mercury thermometer, offers an
easy way for respondents to rate their degree of like or dislike in terms of “hot” or “cold”.
j. Pictures – designed for children (5 years old).

PART II SURVEY RESEARCH (January 27)

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EXAMPLES:

Problems in Interpreting Open-ended Questions:

“How do you describe the programming on your favorite radio station?”

Some responses are as follows:

1. The situation is OK, but it’s geared to Jerry Atrics.

2. I only listen to the station because my poodle likes it.
3. It sounds like it is run by people who don’t know what they’re doing.
4. The music is good, but sometimes it’s too Tiny Booper.
5. I don’t listen to that station because I live on Chinese time.
6. It’s great. It has the best floormat in the city.
7. The station is good, but sometimes it makes me want to vomit.
8. It’s my favorite, but I really don’t like it since my mother does.
9. My parrot is just learning to talk, and the station teaches him a lot of words.
10. My kids hate it, so I turn it up real loud.
11. It sounds great with my car trunk open.
12. There is no way for me to answer that question before I eat dinner.

General Guidelines, item no. 8

Instead of asking directly: What is your annual income? Ask,

“Which of these categories includes your household’s total annual income?”

______________ More than P300,000

______________ P250,000 – P300,000
______________ P200,000 – P240,000
______________ P150,000 – P190,000
______________ P100,000 – P140,000
______________ Under P100,000

Dichotomous Response

Local television stations should have longer weather reports in the

late evening news.

_________ Agree
_________ Disagree
_________ No opinion

Multiple-choice Question
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In general, television commercials tell the truth ...

__________ All of the time

__________ Most of the time
__________ Some of the time
__________ Rarely
__________ Never

(Always include all possible, significant responses you think of.)

Mutually exclusive, multiple-choice question:

Instead of giving these choices:

“How many years have you been working in the newspaper
industry?”

__________ Less than 1 year

__________ 1-5 years
__________ 5-10 years

Use these:

__________ Less that 1 year

__________ Between 1-5 years
__________ More than 5 years

Rating Scales

They are too many commercials on TV.

__________ Strongly agree

__________ Agree
__________ Neutral
__________ Disagree
__________ Strongly disagree

What is your opinion of the local news on Channel 9?

Fair ______ ______ ______ ______ ______ Unfair

(5) (4) (3) (2) (1)

Semantic Differential Scale

How do perceive the term public television?

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Uninteresting ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ Interesting

Good ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ Fair
Dull ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ Exciting
Happy ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ Sad

Rank-ordering Technique

Here are several common occupations. Please rank them in terms of their
prestige. Put 1 next to the profession that has the most prestige, a 2 next to the
one with the second most, and so on.

_________ Newspaper reporter

_________ Banker
_________ Dentist
_________ Lawyer
_________ Police officer
_________ Politician
_________ Newspaper writer
_________ Teacher
_________ Television news reporter

Checklist Question

What things do you look for in a new television set? (Check as many as apply.)

_______ Automatic fine-tuning

_______ Picture within a picture (ability to view more than one
channel at a time)
_______ Remote control
_______ Cable ready
_______ Portable
_______ Stereo sound
_____________________________ Other

Forced-choice Questions

Select one statement from each of the following pairs of statements:

____ Advertising of any kind is a waste of time and money.

____ I learn a lot from all types of advertising.
____ Television program content should be regulated by the government.
____ Television program content should not be regulated by the government.
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____ I listen to the radio every day.

____ I only listen to the radio when I’m alone.

Feeling Thermometer

How would you rate the coverage your local newspaper provided on the recent
school board campaign? (Place an X near the number on the thermometer that
most accurately reflects your feelings; 100 indicates strong approval, and 0
reflects strong disapproval.)