Survey Research

Offerings:
Course GEDU 711 | Every spring semester.

Prerequisites:
Course GEDU 706 | Applied Educational Statistics
Course GEDU 708 | Research Methods in Education

Catalog Description:

Objectives or Outcomes:

At the conclusion of this course, students should be able to:

Determine whether survey research is the best available methodology for a proposed research design;
Determine which type of survey is most appropriate;
Set up guidelines for experimental designs of surveys as well as crosssectional, cohort, and case-control designs and provide checklists of risks to avoid for internal and external validity;
Determine proper wording of questions, feasible number of questions,
- to standardize response choice,
- to ask questions about attitude, knowledge, behavior,
- to avoid biased wording,and
- to distinguish among response formats that use nominal, ordinals and numerical measurement;
Write questions that are most effective for telephone interviews and in-person interviews;
Write cover letters that will motivate and increase response rate;
Know the myriad sampling techniques such as random sampling, stratified random sampling, systematic sampling, snowballing sampling, quota sampling, and focus groups;
Discuss inclusion and exclusion criteria, the logic in estimating standard errors, sample size determination, and the sources of error in sampling;
Measure reliability and validity;
Analyze survey data;
Present effective written and pictorial survey findings.

Requirements:

Students will be required to:

Criteria for Evaluation:

Possible Course Textbooks:

None; use of textbooks on survey research in the library for class report.