Notes on Business Surveys
Uploaded by somethingsotrue on Feb 07, 2006
1 – What are the six common ways to get information (include a short description of each)?
1 – Literature search: review all readily available materials, such as trade publications, newspapers, magazines, annual reports, and any other published materials.
2 – Talking with people: meetings with customers or suppliers or business conversations at trade shows, seminars, and association meetings.
3 – Focus groups: exploring people’s attitudes and ideas by holding a group 6 to 20 people in a conference-like setting with a moderator.
4 – Personal interviews: one person interviewing another person for personal and detailed information. Usually from a written survey, and the interviewee’s answers are taken verbatim.
5 – Telephone surveys: using 100-400 respondents to probe information in usually less than ten minutes. The script is usually the same as a written questionnaire.
6 – Mail surveys: sending mail to survey a large sample size. These usually take eight to twelve weeks to complete, and do not have an interviewer.
2 – What are the five advantages of written questionnaires?
1 – Cost-effective in comparison to face-to-face interviews.
2 – Easy to analyze.
3 – Familiar to people.
4 – Reduce bias by not having an interviewer or a middle man.
5 – Less intrusive than telephone or face-to-face surveys.
3 – What are the four disadvantages of written questionnaires?
1 – Possibility of low response rates, which lowers confidence in the results.
2 – Inability to probe responses. These leave little flexibility to the respondent.
3 – The respondent may not be who the mail was sent to and intended for.
4 – They are not suited for everyone.
4 – What are the twelve qualities of a good question?
1 – Evokes the truth.
2 – Asks for an answer in only one dimension.
3 – Can accommodate all possible answers.
4 – Has mutually exclusive options.
5 – Produces variability of responses.
6 – Follows comfortable from the previous question.
7 – Does not presuppose a certain state of affairs.
8 – Does not imply a desired answer.
9 – Does not use emotionally loaded or vaguely...