Survey Research

Asking questions

Census probably earliest form of survey Karl Marx Political surveys & polls When to use surveys: for information that

cannot be obtained in other ways Thoughts, opinions, hidden behaviors

Surveys

Not appropriate for situations in which the information can be obtained in other ways, i.e., records

Examples in CJ: victimization studies and self-reports

Frequency of offending: ask offenders about how many they have committed

Surveys

Prevalence: how many people commit crimes within a given time frame

Other studies in CJ: public views as to how people feel about crime, criminal justice policy, and other issues

Examples: guns, sentencing, police performance, laws concerning drugs

Surveys

Often used to determine feasibility of a program, or what people say they will do

i.e., people may support a program, but not be willing to participate

Cautionary notes about asking people to predict what they will do—may over or underestimate (night day care and after school program)

Other uses

Surveys before and after the implementation of a program

Can attitudes, beliefs, etc be changed by an intervention?

General purpose crime survey: fear of crime, contacts with the police, security measures, attitudes toward sentencing

Other uses

Survey after an encounter with the police

Types of questions

Open ended and closed ended Closed ended easier to code However, closed ended may leave out some

important response—pretesting is useful Open ended may provide more information,

but are difficult to quantify, and some responses will be irrelevant, indecipherable, etc.

Questions

Important that items be clear Identify terms (i.e., many citizens do not

know what recidivism means, or furloughs or work release, or gun control, the difference between jail and prison, etc.

Questions should be short, and should not be complex—if they are, they may need to be broken down

Other issues on questions

Avoid double barreled questions Avoid negative items or emphasize the NOT Try to avoid biases i.e., associating a question with a particular

person or group (i.e., the President’s proposal)

Other issues

Avoiding phrases with particular meanings i.e., 63% of respondents in a survey said to

little money was being spent on assistance to the poor, while 23% indicated that we were spending too little on welfare

Welfare a vague and potentially loaded term-depends on what you want to know

Other issues

Social desirability—some answers are the expected ones

Personality tests are often correlated with the Crown-Marlowe Social Desirability scale to determine if this is a problem

Self-reported crime is problematic See p. 253 for an example of alleviating

social desirability in an interview

Other challenges to self-report

Legal issues among offenders Memory problems Interviewing people at repeated intervals Crime calendar

Questionnaires

Tendency to try to compress questionnaires, squeeze questions onto one line, use as few pages as possible

Not a good idea—people will miss questions Better to have a longer questionnaire that will

go quickly Contingency questions

Questionnaires

Matrix questions Advantages: uses space efficiently, compare

responses, easier to complete Potential “response set” problems Can alternate direction of statements Just World Scale

Order of questions

Sometimes order will influence how people answer

i.e., if asked a series of questions about crime, and then asked to rank the most serious problems, crime will be likely to come out higher

Could have more than one version of the questionnaire to assess

Order

With written questionnaires, start with interesting but not “sensitive” questions, routine questions at the end

With interviews, start with routine working into interesting and then sensitive questions

Types of surveys

1. Self-administered

Groups or individually

Groups such as classes, meetings, assemblies, during training sessions, etc.

Individually while at some place (i.e., probationers when visiting probation officers)

Computerized surveys

Types of surveys

2. Mailed Also can use a combination of “home

delivery” and mail 3. Face to face surveys

Individual or groups (focus groups) 4. Telephone surveys

Surveys

Self-administered Administer the questionnaire, use of a

proctor Least expensive, fastest method if it is

feasible

Mailed

Development and testing of questionnaire Important for the questionnaire to look good “Warning” mailings 2 purposes: (1) explain the study; (2) used

to “clean” addresses (getting correct addresses)—because people move, addresses often out of date (alumni surveys)

Mailed questionnaires

Cover letter—affiliation (don’t fake) (avoid controversial affiliations), purpose of the study, how that person was selected, importance of the study (if it has no importance, we shouldn’t be bothering people)

Questionnaire, return self-addressed “stamped” envelope

Mailed

“Stamped” could be actual stamps, metering by the post office (paying the postage), and business reply permits

Follow ups Must either be a “blanket” follow up (if

surveys are anonymous) or specifically tracked for those who did not respond (confidential)

Mailed

Reminder postcards or new packet Generally get some responses to a follow up Acceptable response rates 50% considered

adequate, 60% good, 70% very good Even at 50%, is the sample representative? Comparison of sample demographics with

population demographics

Response rates

Will vary with the population of interest Police Judges, legislators Probation and parole Prisons Citizens Techniques for improving