WHAT IS SURVEY RESEARCH?

• Survey research designs are procedures in quantitative research in which investigators

administer a survey to a sample or to the entire population of people to describe the
attitudes, opinions, behaviors, or characteristics of the population.

• Survey studies describe trends in the data rather than offering rigorous explanations.

• Surveys help identify important beliefs and attitudes of individuals towards national
trends or policies.

TYPES OF SURVEY DESIGN

Cross sectional survey design

• A cross-sectional study can examine current attitudes, beliefs, opinions, or practices.

Attitudes, beliefs, and opinions are ways in which individuals think about issues.

• Longitudinal survey design

• A longitudinal survey design involves the survey procedure of collecting data about
trends with the same population, changes in a cohort group or subpopulation, or changes
in a panel group of the same individuals over time

Cross-Sectional Survey Design

• A cross-sectional study can examine current attitudes, beliefs, opinions, or practices. A

cross-sectional design compares two or more educational groups in terms of attitudes,
beliefs, opinions, or practices.

• A cross-sectional design can measure community needs of educational services as they

relate to programs, courses, school facilities projects, or involvement in the schools or in
community planning.

• Some cross-sectional designs evaluate a program, such as a survey that provides useful
information to decision makers.

• A final type of cross-sectional design is a large-scale assessment of students or teachers,

such as a statewide study or a national survey involving thousands of participants.

Longitudinal Survey Design

• In some surveys, researchers aim to study changes within some general population over a
period of time (Babbie, 1998) which is called a trend study.

• A cohort study is a longitudinal survey design in which a researcher identifies a

subpopulation based on some specific characteristic and then studies that subpopulation
over time. All members of the cohort must have the common characteristic.

• A panel study is a longitudinal survey design in which the researcher examines the same
people over time.