SURVEY AND SAMPLING (KEY POINTS TO REMEMBER)

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UPSC MAINS SOCIOLOGY  

Paper 1 – Chapter 3 – Research Methods and Analysis : Qualitative and quantitative methods.

 
 
WHAT IS SOCIAL SURVEY ?
  • The word Survey is derived from words ‘sur’ and ‘veeir’ which means over and see respectively. 
  • They provide the data for administration, rather than for the illustrative or descriptive material.
  • They are generally quantitative and the history of the social survey is intimately bound up with the develop­ment of statistics.
  • The modern social survey is said to be the product of the intellectual response of the urban middle classes to the social condition of town life in the 19th Century.
  • The social survey method has the ultimate goal of seeking social facts. 
 
 
DEFINITION
  • Dictionary of Sociology defines social survey this way: “The social survey is a systematic collection of facts about people living in a specific geographic, cultural, or administrative area”.
  • “A social survey is the collection of data concerning the living and working conditions, broadly speaking, of the people, in a given community”. – Bogardus
  • ”Social Survey is a method of analysis in scientific and orderly form of defined purpose of a given social situation and activities” – Herman N Morse
 
 
TYPES OF SOCIAL SURVEYS
  • Official, semi-official or private surveys
  • wide­spread or limited surveys
  • census survey or sample surveys
  • general or specialised surveys
  • postal or personal surveys
  • public or confidential surveys
  • initial or repetitive surveys
  • regional or adhoc surveys.

 

Advantages

Generalise results for a large population from a small sample.
The bigger the sample, the more representative it is.
Efficient and less time consuming.
Convenient data gathering (eg: through email)
 

Disadvantages

Results may provide only superficial information.
Differences in the way questions are asked or answered can introduce errors into the survey.
Questions that bear controversies may not be precisely answered by the participants .

 

 

SAMPLING
  • Sampling is an important aspect of social survey.
  • Sampling, that is, selection of the relevant units of inquiry for the collection of data, must be done in a scientific manner.
  • To ensure that the units he selects really reflect the characteristics of the population, the researcher may resort to different devices such as “quota sampling” or “random sampling”.

Merits

  • Very practical method of obtaining information from individuals.
  • A tool for verifying theories.
  • Facilitates inferring generalizations.
  • Can use multiple data collection methods.
  • Useful for administrators and policy makers.

Demerits

  • Time consuming and costly.
  • Chance for sampling errors.
  • Success depends on willingness of respondents.
  • No uniformity of data.
  • Inadequate method to analyze complex phenomenon.