Survey is a descriptive research method used in order to obtain answers to a variety of questions

regarding the behaviors, attitudes, opinions, motivations, intentions, demographic and lifestyle of
a target population.
Characteristics:
_ A structured questionnaire is used questions is presented in a prearranged order.
_ Closed questions require respondents to choose from a set of predetermined answers.
_ Data - are usually collected from a representative sample.
_ The outcomes - are extrapolated (extended) at the level of the entire researched population.
Personal interviews - the respondents are interviewed face-to-face in
their homes.
Advantages:
_ Is recommended for complex and long time questionnaires
_ The interviewer could give additional explanations
_ The interviewer could use samples and product demonstrations
_ High participation the subjects need only to talk about researched topic.
Disadvantages:
_ Anonymity of respondent a person could be reluctant to provide confidential information
_ Interviewer influence some people could be intimidate by interview operator
_ High costs a large number of operators needed to collect data
Telephone interviews information are gathered through telephone contact with individuals
_ Advantages:
_ High speed of data collection
_ Lower costs comparing with personal interviews
_ Absence of face-to-face contact the individuals are willing to cooperate in the case of
confidential questions
_ Higher cooperation people are reluctant to allow strangers to come in house, but they agree to
talk at phone.
_ Disadvantages:
_ Representative sample is hard to assure as not every people is registered in a phone data base
_ Limited duration the call could not be too long and the questions have to be simple ones
_ Lack of visual medium people could misunderstand the questions.
Mail survey is a self-administered survey, in which the questionnaire is sent by mail to the
respondent and he or she returns the filled in questionnaire to the researcher.
_ Advantages:
_ The respondents could answer depending on the time availability.
_ Absence of face-to-face contact the individuals are willing to cooperate in the case of
confidential questions.
_ The respondents could inform himself before to give an answer.
_ Disadvantages:
_ Low rate of response only 20% of questionnaire return.
_ Long time of data collecting the time needed for response is usually higher.
_ Misunderstanding of questions lack of interviewer presence.
Electronic survey is a self-administered survey, assisted by a computer.

_ Computer-interactive surveys the respondent interacts directly with an on-site computer.

The questions appear on the computer screen and answers are recorded into the computers
memory by simply pressing a key.
_ E-mail surveys the questionnaire is sent by e-mail to respondent and this one send it back
using the same mean of communication
_ On-line surveys the questionnaire is directly filled-in into a computer via Internet

Establishing the research questions:

_ The researcher divides the managers questions into more specific ones taking into
consideration all the information needed for replying to these broad questions.
_ These questions are not addressed to anybody. The researcher ask them for himself, in order to
find all the aspects of the studied phenomenon.
_ In relation with these questions are established the hypotheses of research.
_ The research objectives :
_ The research questions are translated into measurable objectives regarding the information that
is to be collected.
_ The objectives must be very specific.
_ For every objective, the researcher has to ask at least a question into the questionnaire.

Statistical hypotheses:
_ Are formulated in measurable terms, being related to a parameter of population (mean or
percent) or to a relationship between variables.
_ They are focused on testing the signification of the difference between a parameter measured at
the sample level and the true value of this one at the level of population.
_ They are designed as sets of two hypotheses: the null hypothesis (H0) and the alternative
hypothesis (H1).
_ The null hypothesis (H0) is always related to an equality (similarity) with a specific value or
states the inexistence of a relationship between variables (the groups of population have similar
behaviors).
_ The alternative hypothesis states the contrary of those stated by H0.

Questionnaire is a formalized set of questions used for obtaining information from

respondents.
A questionnaire contains the research objectives transformed into questions.
A survey could not be better than its questionnaire.
Therefore the objectives of questionnaire design are:
To collect only the necessary information (relevance)
To encourage the respondents to give answers
To avoid inaccurate answers and other errors
Guidelines for question wording:
Use short questions which do not exceed 20 words.
Avoid long words, with many syllables.
Use simple words that have the same meaning for all respondents.
The first questions have to be simple in order to warm up the respondent.
The difficult questions are placed in the middle part of the questionnaire, mixed with simple
ones.
The last questions is about the characteristics of respondents (sex, age, income, education)
Once the questionnaire is finished, it should be pretested.
Pretesting refers to the testing of questionnaire on a small sample of respondents in order to
identify and eliminate potential problems.
Even the best questionnaire can be improved
All aspects of questionnaire should be tested, including: question content, wording, question
sequence, layout, question difficulty etc.
Based on the findings from pretesting, the questionnaire should be improved.