The research method that I found interesting on Chapter 13's Table 13.3 is the survey research. Trenholm writes that the survey research method are used by researchers to survey groups of people through written questionnaires or face-to-face interviews. I like this method because it is direct and straightforward. With the survey research method, I can talk to people directly and be able to receive an honest answer.
Assuming that I am doing a study regarding deception, my main research question would be "What are the main causes of Deception?" To conduct this research question, I would use the survey research method to find out what the general public believe to be the cause of deception. This survey method will allow me come up with a series of questions (questionnaire) that will help me determine what the causes of deception are. These questions can range from multiple choices or even open-ended. Even though survey methods do not have extremely high response and accuracy rate, surveys are useful when researchers want to know the truth about how people fee about certain things. With surveys, researchers can make it convenient for the participants by allowing them to take it at home and turn it in at their earliest convenience.
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Good detailed post...though I fully agree that surveys are a great qualitative research method, the biggest problem with them is the way people respond. It has been studies that most people don't have the time nor care to fill out a survey, therefore very few people follow the simple directions me or you put in there. So if you have say 100 participants, how many really can you use? And is the sample size going to be big enough for you to get any real results?
ReplyDeleteFor one of my marketing classes, my group used a survey research method and we've gotten okay results but nothing impressive and we had over 300 participants. What do you think of focus groups or personal interviews as research methods?