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Chung-Brown, B., Jadan, V., & Schreyer, A.
What is a survey?
Survey research examines and describes a particular topic by asking questions directly from the population of people you want to learn more about. Survey research is a research method that can use both a quantitative and qualitative approach to gather data with standardized questionnaires or interviews through closed ended or open ended questions from a specific sample of population.
Origins of Survey Research
Survey research and questionnaires were invented by Sir Francis Galton in the late 1800s.
Survey research has been around for various centuries in different capacities. Over time, surveying was used by the use census taking and assistance with political polling of populations, seen more prominently around World War II (Ornstein, 2013). Multiple researchers contributed to the “modern survey research [which] emerged between 1935 and 1940, with sample designs capable of representing almost any population, questionnaires covering a wide range of objective and subjective topics, and the development of procedures and establishment of organizations for large-scale face-to-face surveys” (p. 10, Ornstein, 2013). Most notable contributions to this field of survey research has formally been introduced to modern research in the 1930s by Paul Lazarsfeld and is a popular form to collect data, similar to the survey research we are familiar with today (Chapter 9, Bhattacherjee, 2012).
"Statistics are the only tool by which an opening can be cut through the formidable thicket of difficulties that bars the path of those who pursue the science of man" - Sir Francis Galton
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