Chapter 1 Post #2

Another section of this chapter that I found interesting was the discussion of the various research methods, particularly the information about the survey. Like the chapter said, surveys are probably the fastest and most direct way to get data results. It is also easy to get opinions from a large group of people using surveys. However, all of this convenience has a downfall as well. Because surveys are such a quick method of obtaining data, they cannot always be very thorough. They will not provide nearly as much information as could be collected from an experiment or study. Some of the disadvantages of surveys that the chapter brought up were that people are not always completely honest on surveys. They also might just circle something instead of reading all of the options carefully and thinking about them. Another disadvantage that I think surveys have are that people’s answers can be very ambiguous. I know that personally when I take surveys that have open-ended questions, I write short responses. These short responses could be interpreted differently and could lead to inaccurate data. Something else that the chapter brought up was that people’s answers on surveys tend to be influenced by the wording. I think that this brings up the subject of the researcher’s bias on how they want the survey results to turn up. It often seems that surveys are worded so that you lean more towards answering one way than another. This could be because the researcher wants you to answer that way so that their thesis is supported by your results. Like the chapter suggests, surveys are unable to create completely accurate results; nevertheless, they are very useful because they are convenient and easy to be answered by a large group of people.