15 Examples of Survey Types

Surveys are research instruments that aim to collect information from a group of individuals about a particular topic. For example:ask many customers in a supermarket their opinion about a brand of laundry soap.

There are various survey types, which respond both to the format in which they are applied and to the nature and intention for which they are carried out. The implementation channel is also important, since, with new technologies, surveys have found new ways of run and today you can see multiple survey applications, either through web pages, social networks or email electronic.

Some of the fields in which surveys are most frequently applied are in the social sciences, politics and business. According to the area of ​​knowledge, the type of survey that would be most effective and that will collect the data needed more efficiently is designed.

• political surveys. They are those that seek to measure the opinion of citizens in various aspects such as the image of a politician or a party, their intention to vote in an election, the perception of proposals or Projects. For example:
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  the media asking people at polling stations what they think of the candidates.
• Surveys in social sciences. They are those that constitute the main resources for researchers, whose objective is to understand a social phenomenon. What is sought is to take a specific proportion of the total population to ask the individuals their appreciations on a certain subject and that this can be a projection of the thought of most. For example: A researcher working on the impact of a mining company in a rural town is going to survey a portion of of the population to find out her opinions about the project and if she believes it is good or bad for the community.
• Marketing surveys. They are very common to determine the tastes of the public and thus create new products or understand the needs of customers. Thanks to them, lines of services and consumer objects are designed, although they are not always linked to success, because, although a survey can determine that a product will be liked in the market, there is also the probability that it will not be able to find the result expected. This happens because in the surveys the opinion of a small number of potentials is perceived. users and in reality other aspects such as advertising or the distribution of the product. For example: A company implements a survey to find out if its idea of ​​shoes with led lights can be liked by the young population.

• See also: Representative sample

Survey Ranking

According to your goals

• descriptive surveys. They are those that seek to inquire into the conditions of a situation or of the group being surveyed. Descriptive surveys are interested in discovering the characteristics of a situation or the particularities of the perception of people about something specific, in order to have information about the state of a stuff. For example: a sociological survey that asks about the living conditions of people in a specific neighborhood.
• analytical surveys. They are those that seek to understand the origins, states or effects of a certain phenomenon, limiting variables such as place, time or the position of the people surveyed. In general, analytical surveys have the purpose of generating plans that imply a change in the context in which they are carried out. For example: a survey interested in knowing why the students of a school are dissatisfied with the class schedules in order to adjust them in the best way.

Depending on the type of question

• open response surveys. They are those that give the participant the possibility of developing a line of thought around their answers. These can be implemented either by recording the respondent to give their opinion or by asking them to write it down. One of the obstacles to this type of survey is that it is difficult to synthesize, since researchers may come across a wide variety of points of view. For example: a survey that asks passers-by what they think about the traffic in the city.
• Closed-response surveys. They are those in which the possible answers are limited to clear options that do not allow interpretation. In closed-response surveys, the “yes or no” options are common, although they can also refer to another broader scale, such as the options "probable, unlikely, very likely" or to be evaluated with numbers a freak. This type of survey responds mostly to quantitative research, since it can be counted to arrive at a clear and precise answer. For example: a survey that asks its participants whether or not they believe that the Government is doing a good job.

According to the way of collection

• online surveys. They are those that implement computer tools to collect information. One of the advantages is the ease of being able to reach a large number of people in different parts of the world, in addition to its low costs. It includes any type of device used as a response tool, such as mobile phones, tablets, or computers. For example: a survey on a fashion website that shows two designs and asks visitors which one they prefer.
• telephone surveys. They are among the most common in recent decades and are carried out with operators who call the people who make up the research community to ask them the survey questions. For example: a survey of a company that offers fiber optics that, after customer service, leaves a service satisfaction survey.
• personal surveys. They are those in which the information is collected in person by researchers or interviewers available for the research. It is usually done either by visiting homes, stopping passers-by on public roads, or in any way that allows direct interaction between the interviewer and the respondent. For example: an environmental organization whose employees settle in a tourist park to ask passers-by about their knowledge about caring for the environment.
• Email surveys. They are those that are implemented by sending emails to potential participants so that they respond by the same means. One of the advantages of this form of survey is that there is a formal record of each of the responses that serves as evidence of the collection work. For example: a company that sends its employees an email to answer questions about the perception of teleworking.

according to confidentiality 

• anonymous surveys. They are those in which it is not necessary for the respondent to provide any type of personal data. They are usually those that deal with sensitive topics or in which the participants are sought to be as honest as possible without fearing that what they say could bring them negative consequences. For example: a survey on the political ideology of a social group that can be answered from a web page without recording personal data.
• Public surveys. They are those in which the personal information of the participants is available. This can happen because the subject questioned is not sensitive, although there are also cases of surveys in which they need ways to be able to contact the participants in the case in which they want to deepen their answers. For example: a group of physicians conducting a survey on the performance of a drug and want to check up on patients a few months later regarding the changes they have experienced.

Depending on the frequency of implementation

• cross-sectional surveys. They are those that are implemented only once in a space, time and with a determined population. It is a very frequent type of survey in epidemiological investigations, since they seek to establish the frequency of clinical events in order to present conclusions or specific hypotheses. For example: a clinic that implements a survey to learn about the eating habits of patients with heart conditions during the first quarter of the year.
• longitudinal surveys. They are those that are part of research that monitors their respondents to find out their thoughts or the status of their response over an extended period of time. For example: a bank that repeats a survey every two months for a year in which it asks a group of customers how the effectiveness of the service of its telephone application evolves.
• retrospective surveys. They are those who seek to investigate the past. To do this, they ask respondents how they lived experiences in situations that have already taken place or their ideas about phenomena that happened. For example: a music chain that does a survey asking older people how they lived rock and roll in the seventies in Mexico City.

Depending on the number of respondents

• partial surveys. They are those that select a percentage of the population to determine what is the trend of the opinion of the majority. They are used when the investigated group is very extended, such as an entire country or potential clients at a regional level. In these cases, an attempt is made to find a balance between an acceptable number of respondents who can establish an opinion that they share the majority and the economic possibility of carrying it out, since interviewing half the population of a nation will be very expensive. For example: A bus company decides to measure the satisfaction of its users by surveying people on 10% of the routes it has in a city.
• exhaustive surveys. They are the ones that survey all the members of the community that is being investigated. It is possible when there are few people that make up the social group, such as the headquarters of a company or when you have the financial resources to survey a large number of people. For example: a company that surveys all its employees to find out how satisfied they are with the benefits they have.

Examples of survey types

1. A survey on consumer perception of a new yogurt flavor is descriptive.
2. A survey to find out the degree of damage to houses in a neighborhood by a flood in which all the inhabitants are asked about this event is exhaustive.
3. A survey made to pediatricians on the main factors of malnutrition in the child population is of an analytical nature.
4. A survey of a political party that calls citizens by telephone to find out their opinion about the party and its popularity is of the telephone type.
5. A survey that asks tourists from a city whether or not they would return to visit is of the closed type.
6. A survey implemented from the Instagram account of a influencers It's kind of online.
7. A survey on study habits in the mid-twentieth century is retrospective.
8. A door-to-door survey is personal.
9. A survey of a company to its customers about the feelings produced by its latest campaign is descriptive.
10. A survey on the improvement of food in a restaurant that is implemented for a year and a half to regular customers is longitudinal.

Interactive exercise to practice

Follow with:

• cluster sampling
• simple random sampling
• Population and sample
• Case study

References

• "Types of surveys" in Question Pro.
• “Types of survey” on Economipedia.com.
• “Top 10 types of surveys and questionnaires”in Analytical Marketing.
• "Cross-sectional surveys" in scielosp.org.