Speech Chapter 8 Keyton Communication Research Surveys And Questionnaires Activity News Polls Polls Are

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Keyton: Communication Research, 5e IM–1

Chapter 8

Surveys and Questionnaires

Activity: News Polls

Polls are often conducted by news or other organizations that collect and present data about political

issues. If your students are interested in political communication, I recommend Professor Groeling’s

Activity: Survey Checklist

The following set of questions can be used to design a survey study or to evaluate a survey study

reported in the literature.

1. What is the general purpose of the survey?

2. Who is the population? What is the estimated size of the population?

3. How will the sample be selected? What is the size of the sample?

4. What format will the survey take? (telephone, mail, e-mail, online, face-to-face)

Activity: Developing Topics for Surveys

Assign students to select at least three topics they believe would be appropriate for a survey. Students

should complete the following steps:

2. From the citations, select at least three citations to read.

3. If a questionnaire exists, how is the questionnaire described? What are its uses? Are issues of reliability

and validity addressed? How could you use it for research?

5. Report what you find as conclusions and recommendations for adopting or adapting questionnaires

developed by others, or for developing an original questionnaire.

Activity: Examining Surveys

James McCroskey created this website to organize the considerable number of quantitative measures

developed by scholars who are or were at West Virginia University. It’s a good one-stop source for

showing students different surveys. It also invites a discussion about the purpose of surveys. I have

Activity: Writing Survey Items

Most researchers would agree that writing survey items is often more difficult than expected. Below are

four specific activities you can assign to students to develop their skill at writing items for surveys.

1. Develop a specific survey objective about a communication topic on your campus. Do not write any

specific survey items until you have finalized the survey objective. Write 10 survey items that you believe

will help you meet your survey objective. For each question ask yourself, “Why do I want to know this

information?” and “How will this information help me meet my survey objective?”

3. To meet your survey objective, you need to collect information about whether, and how, respondents

maintain relationships with older relatives. How many questions and what type of response sets will you

need to write to obtain both pieces of information? Test the questions on at least five people to see if you

4. To meet your survey objective, you need to collect information about respondents’ attitudes about

maintaining relationships with older relatives. Think carefully about the uses of closed versus open

questions. Which form will be better to collect this type of information? Why?

Activity: Converting Open Questions into Closed Questions

Many survey questions written in an open format can be turned into closed questions. The advantage of

doing so is that respondents provide more comparable answers. Have students convert the following

open questions into closed questions. Warn students that some open questions will require two closed

1. How would you describe the type of university you attend?

2. How satisfying is your interaction with your employer?

3. What, if anything, would you change about your interaction with your friends at college?

4. When did you decide to attend college?

5. At what point in your college career did you make a choice about your major?

Activity: Writing Introductions for Surveys

Ask students to write an introduction for a telephone survey conducted by your department and

university for the purpose of collecting information about voting behavior in the last presidential election.

Activity: Reporting Survey Data

1. Ask students to respond to the first four questionnaire items and the demographic questions on the

Communicative Adaptability Scale (pages 150-151). After collecting the data, use statistical software (e.g.,

Excel, SPSS, SAS) to display the data on at least two different types of bar graphs, pie charts, or other data

displays (or use data visualization software; e.g., Tableau). Discussion questions include the following:

• Which graphical display best displays the data? Why?

2. In almost every daily issue of USA Today (type survey in the search box), results of a survey are

reported. Ask students to examine several of these graphical reports. Discussion questions include the

following:

Activity: Online Surveys

Many researchers are using web-based or online questionnaires or surveys. In essence, research

participants are given a URL (usually via e-mail; or posted on a website) to access an online survey. Using

pull down boxes, radio buttons, and short write-in boxes, participants provide discrete, continuous, and

Keyton: Communication Research, 5e IM–4

textual data to participate in the research project. When participants submit the survey, it is delivered

electronically to the researcher, often in the form of numerical and text responses on a spreadsheet.

After explaining (and potentially exploring) an online survey, use the following questions to facilitate

a classroom discussion:

• What ethical issues could arise from collecting data online? How would these issues differ when

the researcher is collecting survey data face–to-face? Over the telephone? In a mail survey?

• An informed consent form provides contact information if participants want more information

Activity: Self-Training for Online Methodology

This website is generally too sophisticated for undergraduate students, but it does have effective self–

training modules. I especially like the section on Online Questionnaires. The site is posted by the ESRC

Keyton: Communication Research, 5e IM–5

Activity: Selecting Response Sets for Survey Questions

This exercise is designed to help students understand the importance of selecting the best word anchors

for Likert-type scales. Write on the board any complete row of the following series of words:

Very often

Fairly often

Occasionally

Rarely

Never

Always

Usually

Sometimes

Rarely

Never

Very positive

Generally positive

Mixed

Generally negative

Very

negative

Excellent

Very good

Good

Fair

Poor

Completely

Mostly

Unsure

Mostly

Completely

satisfied

dissatisfied

Completely

Generally

Unsure

Generally

Completely

agree

disagree

Completely

Somewhat

Unsure

Somewhat

Completely

true

untrue

None

Very mild

Mild

Moderate

Severe

Much more

Somewhat more

About the

Somewhat less

Much less

than others

same as others

than others

Ask students to associate a percentage (or a value from 0 to 100) with each of the five anchors. Although

students are likely to achieve consensus on the end anchors (e.g., always as 100% and never as 0%), there is

likely to be disparity for the three anchors in the middle. Discuss this disparity with students and discuss

the implications of using Likert-type scales with and without numerical anchors.

Keyton: Communication Research, 5e IM–6

Worksheet—Surveys and Questionnaires

2. Select a questionnaire from Communication Research Measures II: A Sourcebook, edited by R. B. Rubin, A.

M. Rubin, E. E. Graham, E. M. Perse, & D. R. Seibold (2009), New York, NY: Routledge, or select a

questionnaire included in a journal article. Attach a copy of the questionnaire to this completed

worksheet.

a. Identify the primary construct and, if appropriate, its subscales. Identify the number of

questionnaire items, the minimum score, and the maximum score for the entire scale and each

subscale.

b. Could any of the items be rewritten for clarity? Select one item and rewrite it here:

Original item:

Revised item:

c. For which type of research participants would this questionnaire be inappropriate?

d. What type of response scale is used for this questionnaire?

Keyton: Communication Research, 5e IM–7

Additional Resources

Lepkowski, J. M., Tucker, C., Brick, J. M., de Leeus, E. D., Japec, L., Lavrakas, P. J. . . . Sansger, R. L. (Eds.).

(2008). Advances in telephone survey methodology. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley.

If your students are conducting telephone surveys or polls, this is a must read.

Reynolds, R. A., Woods, R., & Baker, J. D. (Eds.). (2007). Handbook of research on electronic surveys and

measurements. Hershey, PA: Idea Group Reference.

If you are using online technology as part of the method, or if the study is about technology, I

recommend checking out this volume.

Rimal R. N., & Real, K. (2003). Perceived risk and efficacy beliefs as motivators of change: Use of the risk

perception (RPA) framework to understand health behaviors. Human Communication Research,

29, 370-399. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2958.2003.tb00844.x

Sargent, J. (2002). Topic avoidance: Is this the way to a more satisfying relationship? Communication Research

Reports, 19, 175-182. doi:10.1080/08824090209384845

Easy to understand article on how the researcher adapted an existing questionnaire.

Web Resources