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In statistics, quality assurance, and survey methodology, sampling is the selection of a subset or a statistical sample of individuals from within a statistical population to estimate characteristics of the whole population. Statisticians attempt to collect samples that are representative of the population. Sampling has lower costs and faster data collection compared to recording data from the entire population, and thus, it can provide insights in cases where it is infeasible to measure an entire population.
Questionnaire construction refers to the design of a questionnaire to gather statistically useful information about a given topic. When properly constructed and responsibly administered, questionnaires can provide valuable data about any given subject.
Survey methodology is "the study of survey methods". As a field of applied statistics concentrating on human-research surveys, survey methodology studies the sampling of individual units from a population and associated techniques of survey data collection, such as questionnaire construction and methods for improving the number and accuracy of responses to surveys. Survey methodology targets instruments or procedures that ask one or more questions that may or may not be answered.
In psychometrics, item response theory (IRT) is a paradigm for the design, analysis, and scoring of tests, questionnaires, and similar instruments measuring abilities, attitudes, or other variables. It is a theory of testing based on the relationship between individuals' performances on a test item and the test takers' levels of performance on an overall measure of the ability that item was designed to measure. Several different statistical models are used to represent both item and test taker characteristics. Unlike simpler alternatives for creating scales and evaluating questionnaire responses, it does not assume that each item is equally difficult. This distinguishes IRT from, for instance, Likert scaling, in which "All items are assumed to be replications of each other or in other words items are considered to be parallel instruments". By contrast, item response theory treats the difficulty of each item as information to be incorporated in scaling items.
A question is an utterance which serves as a request for information. Questions are sometimes distinguished from interrogatives, which are the grammatical forms typically used to express them. Rhetorical questions, for instance, are interrogative in form but may not be considered bona fide questions, as they are not expected to be answered.
Multiple choice (MC), objective response or MCQ is a form of an objective assessment in which respondents are asked to select only correct answers from the choices offered as a list. The multiple choice format is most frequently used in educational testing, in market research, and in elections, when a person chooses between multiple candidates, parties, or policies.
Mathematical statistics is the application of probability theory, a branch of mathematics, to statistics, as opposed to techniques for collecting statistical data. Specific mathematical techniques which are used for this include mathematical analysis, linear algebra, stochastic analysis, differential equations, and measure theory.
In psychology, a projective test is a personality test designed to let a person respond to ambiguous stimuli, presumably revealing hidden emotions and internal conflicts projected by the person into the test. This is sometimes contrasted with a so-called "objective test" / "self-report test", which adopt a "structured" approach as responses are analyzed according to a presumed universal standard, and are limited to the content of the test. The responses to projective tests are content analyzed for meaning rather than being based on presuppositions about meaning, as is the case with objective tests. Projective tests have their origins in psychoanalysis, which argues that humans have conscious and unconscious attitudes and motivations that are beyond or hidden from conscious awareness.
A questionnaire is a research instrument that consists of a set of questions for the purpose of gathering information from respondents through survey or statistical study. A research questionnaire is typically a mix of close-ended questions and open-ended questions. Open-ended, long-term questions offer the respondent the ability to elaborate on their thoughts. The Research questionnaire was developed by the Statistical Society of London in 1838.
Response bias is a general term for a wide range of tendencies for participants to respond inaccurately or falsely to questions. These biases are prevalent in research involving participant self-report, such as structured interviews or surveys. Response biases can have a large impact on the validity of questionnaires or surveys.
Computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) is an interviewing technique in which the respondent or interviewer uses an electronic device to answer the questions. It is similar to computer-assisted telephone interviewing, except that the interview takes place in person instead of over the telephone. This method is usually preferred over a telephone interview when the questionnaire is long and complex. It has been classified as a personal interviewing technique because an interviewer is usually present to serve as a host and to guide the respondent. If no interviewer is present, the term Computer-Assisted Self Interviewing (CASI) may be used. An example of a situation in which CAPI is used as the method of data collection is the British Crime Survey.
In social science research, social-desirability bias is a type of response bias that is the tendency of survey respondents to answer questions in a manner that will be viewed favorably by others. It can take the form of over-reporting "good behavior" or under-reporting "bad", or undesirable behavior. The tendency poses a serious problem with conducting research with self-reports. This bias interferes with the interpretation of average tendencies as well as individual differences.
Lie detection is an assessment of a verbal statement with the goal to reveal a possible intentional deceit. Lie detection may refer to a cognitive process of detecting deception by evaluating message content as well as non-verbal cues. It also may refer to questioning techniques used along with technology that record physiological functions to ascertain truth and falsehood in response. The latter is commonly used by law enforcement in the United States, but rarely in other countries because it is based on pseudoscience.
Randomised response is a research method used in structured survey interview. It was first proposed by S. L. Warner in 1965 and later modified by B. G. Greenberg and coauthors in 1969. It allows respondents to respond to sensitive issues while maintaining confidentiality. Chance decides, unknown to the interviewer, whether the question is to be answered truthfully, or "yes", regardless of the truth.
Acquiescence bias, also known as agreement bias, is a category of response bias common to survey research in which respondents have a tendency to select a positive response option or indicate a positive connotation disproportionately more frequently. Respondents do so without considering the content of the question or their 'true' preference. Acquiescence is sometimes referred to as "yea-saying" and is the tendency of a respondent to agree with a statement when in doubt. Questions affected by acquiescence bias take the following format: a stimulus in the form of a statement is presented, followed by 'agree/disagree,' 'yes/no' or 'true/false' response options. For example, a respondent might be presented with the statement "gardening makes me feel happy," and would then be expected to select either 'agree' or 'disagree.' Such question formats are favoured by both survey designers and respondents because they are straightforward to produce and respond to. The bias is particularly prevalent in the case of surveys or questionnaires that employ truisms as the stimuli, such as: "It is better to give than to receive" or "Never a lender nor a borrower be". Acquiescence bias can introduce systematic errors that affect the validity of research by confounding attitudes and behaviours with the general tendency to agree, which can result in misguided inference. Research suggests that the proportion of respondents who carry out this behaviour is between 10% and 20%.
Computer-assisted web interviewing (CAWI) is an Internet surveying technique in which the interviewee follows a script provided in a website. The questionnaires are made in a program for creating web interviews. The program allows for the questionnaire to contain pictures, audio and video clips, links to different web pages, etc. The website is able to customize the flow of the questionnaire based on the answers provided, as well as information already known about the participant. It is considered to be a cheaper way of surveying since one doesn't need to use people to hold surveys unlike computer-assisted telephone interviewing. With the increasing use of the Internet, online questionnaires have become a popular way of collecting information. The design of an online questionnaire has a dramatic effect on the quality of data gathered. There are many factors in designing an online questionnaire; guidelines, available question formats, administration, quality and ethic issues should be reviewed. Online questionnaires should be seen as a sub-set of a wider-range of online research methods.
Item tree analysis (ITA) is a data analytical method which allows constructing a hierarchical structure on the items of a questionnaire or test from observed response patterns.
Assume that we have a questionnaire with m items and that subjects can answer positive (1) or negative (0) to each of these items, i.e. the items are dichotomous. If n subjects answer the items this results in a binary data matrix D with m columns and n rows. Typical examples of this data format are test items which can be solved (1) or failed (0) by subjects. Other typical examples are questionnaires where the items are statements to which subjects can agree (1) or disagree (0).
Depending on the content of the items it is possible that the response of a subject to an item j determines her or his responses to other items. It is, for example, possible that each subject who agrees to item j will also agree to item i. In this case we say that item j implies item i. The goal of an ITA is to uncover such deterministic implications from the data set D.
The bogus pipeline is a fake polygraph used to get participants to truthfully respond to emotional/affective questions in a survey. It is a technique used by social psychologists to reduce false answers when attempting to collect self-report data. As an example, social desirability is a common reason for warped survey results.
The study of memory incorporates research methodologies from neuropsychology, human development and animal testing using a wide range of species. The complex phenomenon of memory is explored by combining evidence from many areas of research. New technologies, experimental methods and animal experimentation have led to an increased understanding of the workings of memory.
Local differential privacy (LDP) is a model of differential privacy with the added requirement that if an adversary has access to the personal responses of an individual in the database, that adversary will still be unable to learn much of the user's personal data. This is contrasted with global differential privacy, a model of differential privacy that incorporates a central aggregator with access to the raw data.
References
- ↑ D. Raghavarao and W. T. Federer (1979). "Block Total Response as an Alternative to the Randomized Response Method in Surveys". Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series B. 41 (1): 40–45.
- Elisabeth Coutts, Ben Jann (2009). Sensitive Questions in Online Surveys: Experimental Results for the Randomized Response Technique (RRT) and the Unmatched Count Technique (UCT), General Online Research Conference in Vienna
- Dan R. Dalton, James C. Wimbush, Catherine M. Daily (1994). Using the Unmatched Count Technique (UCT) to estimate base rates for sensitive behavior. Personnel Psychology 47, pp. 817–829
- Allison M. Ahart, Paul R. Sackett (2004). A New Method of Examining Relationships between Individual Difference Measures and Sensitive Behavior Criteria: Evaluating the Unmatched Count Technique. Organizational Research Methods, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 101–114