SURVEY RESEARCHworked too little. As with dozens of other such time
budget surveys when all meetings, community serv-
ice activities, research work, course preparation and
planning, exam writing and grading, paper evalua-
tion, student advising, and direct teaching time are
totaled, most professors work 55 to 60 hours a week.
By the way, undergraduate students tend to believe
that professors put in about 40 hours a week.^58
Costs
Professional-quality survey research can be expen-
sive if we consider all of the costs, which vary
according to the type of survey used. A simple for-
mula is that for every $1 in cost for a mail survey,
a telephone interview survey costs about $5 and a
face-to-face interview about $25. Internet surveys
can cost almost nothing except setup time.
Costs vary greatly.^59 Beyond modest supply
costs, the highest expenses are labor costs to hire
professional staff (who develop and pilot test a ques-
tionnaire) to hire clerical staff and interviewers, and
to train interviewers. Beginning researchers tend to
underestimate all of the expenses and time required.
In 2008, a two-page mail questionnaire sent to 300
respondents cost me $2,500, or about $8.30 each.
This did not include payment for writing and check-
ing the questionnaire or for statistically analyzing
the data. With a 60 percent response rate (180
returns), the real cost was closer to $13.90 per com-
pleted questionnaire.
Professional survey organizations often charge
$75 or more for a completed 15-minute telephone
interview. The costs for a face-to-face interview
study are higher. A professionally completed face-
to-face interview can cost more than $200, depend-
ing on the interview length and travel expenses. At
one extreme, a face-to-face survey of 1,000 geo-
graphically dispersed respondents from the public
can cost more than $300,000 and require a year to
complete. At the other extreme, a simple one-page,
self-administered questionnaire that a teacher pho-
tocopies and distributes to 100 students in one school
can cost very little except for the teacher’s time and
effort. The teacher might be able to prepare and dis-
tribute the questionnaire, collect responses, and tab-
ulate results in as little as one week.
SURVEY INTERVIEWING
Over the decades, our knowledge of interviewing
errors evolved in three stages. During the 1960s and
1970s, we focused on how to stop mistakes because
a respondent was not being fully committed to the
seriousness of the survey interview situation. To
improve survey interviews, we told interviewers to
emphasize the importance of complete and accurate
answers or to model proper respondent behavior.
By the 1980s–1990s, improving interviews shifted
to standardizing interviewer behavior. We carefully
trained interviewers to read each survey question
exactly as written, to use neutral probes, to record
respondent answers verbatim, and to be very non-
judgmental. We emphasized making each interview
situation an identical experience.
The standard interview is based on the naïve
assumption model(see Foddy, 1993:13). We
sought to reduce any gap between actual experi-
ence in conducting surveys and the ideal survey as
expressed in the model’s assumptions (see Expan-
sion Box 11, Naïve Assumption Model of Survey
Interviews).
By 2000, some researchers advocated aban-
doning the standardized approach and using
an alternative interview format, a flexible or
conversational interview, which is based on the
collaborative encounter model (discussed later in
this chapter). The interview is treated as a social sit-
uation in which respondents must interpret the
meaning of a survey question. Interviewers collab-
orate with respondents or assist so that respondents
accurately grasp the researcher’s intent in a ques-
tion. The interviewers actively work to improve
accuracy on questions about complex issues orConversational interview A flexible technique
based on the collaborative encounter model in which
interviewers adjust interviewing questions to the
understanding of specific respondents but maintain the
resesearcher’s intent in each question.Naïve assumption model A particular standardized
survey research type in which there are no communi-
cation problems and respondents’ responses perfectly
match their thoughts.