3.5 Quantitative Research Methods
In this section, we take a closer look at quantitative research methods that are commonly used in social science research. Here you will learn more about surveys and experiments. In the next section, we’ll explore qualitative research methods, including ethnography, interviews, content analysis, and community-based action research.
Surveys
Do you strongly agree? Agree? Neither agree nor disagree? Disagree? Strongly disagree? If you’ve heard this before, you’ve probably completed your fair share of surveys. At some point, most people in the United States respond to some type of survey. The 2020 U.S. Census is an excellent example of a large-scale survey intended to gather sociological data. Since 1790, the United States has conducted a survey consisting of six questions to collect demographic data about the residents who live in the United States.
As a research method, a survey collects data from subjects who respond to a series of questions about behaviors and opinions, often in the form of a questionnaire or an interview. Surveys are one of the most widely used scientific research methods. The standard survey format allows individuals a level of anonymity in which they can express personal ideas.
Surveys gather different types of information from people. While surveys are not great at capturing the ways people really behave in social situations, they are a useful method for discovering how people feel, think, and act—or at least how they say they feel, think, and act. Surveys can track preferences (such as for presidential candidates) or reported individual behaviors (such as sleeping, driving, or texting habits). They can also be used to collect information such as employment status, income, and education levels. Not all surveys are considered sociological research. Many surveys people encounter focus on identifying marketing needs and strategies rather than testing a hypothesis or contributing to social science knowledge. Questions such as, “How many hot dogs do you eat in a month?” or “Were the staff helpful?” are not usually designed as scientific research.
A survey targets a specific population, people who are the focus of a study, such as college athletes, international students, or teenagers living with type 1 (juvenile-onset) diabetes. Most researchers choose to survey a small sector of the population, or a sample. A sample is a manageable number of subjects who represent a larger population. Survey data can be quantified, and researchers can analyze responses using statistics.
Numbers that are presented in the media are routinely assumed to be correct. However, we should think a bit more about the samples used in data collection and the strategies used to evaluate statistics. For example, if you were to hear that 90 percent of college students still use Facebook as their main source of social media, you would likely be pretty surprised. However, if you learned that the sample consisted of 10 college stu