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Surveys

A survey is a design for collecting data based on questions to individuals through a standardized instrument (questionnaire). It can be used within the more general research designs following the quantitative standard (experimental, quasi-experimental, nonex-perimental designs). A fuller definition is as follows:

A “survey” is a systematic method for gathering information from (a sample of) entities for the purpose of constructing quantitative descriptors [statistics] of the attributes of the larger population of which the entities are members. The word “systematic” is deliberate and meaningfully distinguishes surveys from other ways of gathering information. The phrase “(a sample of)” appears in the definition because sometimes surveys attempt to measure everyone in a population and sometimes just a sample. (Groves et al. 2004, 2)

An example that may well depict ...

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