Survey, Preparation

There are number of ways and means of data collection. Such as, focus groups, interviews and surveys to name a few. For the purpose of my diploma project, i am choosing the survey.

Why a survey over a personal interview?

Initially i had planned on a personal interview, documenting it with a camera for added benefit.
My jury panelist, Ms. Manjari Singh was of the opinion that such a personal interview would be too “intrusive” and may even be “intimidating”. I suppose i hadn’t thought of that. People do get very nervous in front of cameras and when dealing with a delicate topic of CSA, they may refrain from answering openly and they may be put in an uncomfortable position.

How is a survey different from a questionnaire?

I had been interchanging the two words and using them both recklessly while speaking to various people. I finally decided to google it and find out the difference. So this article  put it in better words.

– Surveys are research methods of data collection. 

– Questionnaires and Interviews are tools. 

– Questionnaires are part of the survey process

– Surveys require  selecting populations for inclusion, pre-testing the questionnaire, determining  delivery methods, ensuring validity, and analyzing results.

Therefore, i am conducting a survey.

PHASE I

My first draft of questions were these – Questions for parents

Manjari was kind enough to have a look at them and asked me to relook, rephrase and most importantly make a mind map of what i was trying to gain from the questionnaire.

I decided to visually represent the aims to be clear of what i was trying to achieve, and this would help me ask better questions –

The second draft of questions were these – Questions V.2

In the second version you will notice i added –

> a question on annual income –  as my target audience is Upper Middle class and upper class – this question will help me sort out the responses that support my enquiry.

What i didn’t know – That economic classifications of income keep changing and that i needed to find the the most current and oft used classification. Thanks to Ms. Manjari Singh – who provided me an excerpt from Ms. Jyothsana Belliappas research paper Economic Indicators of Middle Class Position. 

On Manjari’s suggestion i went through reports of the  NCAER (national council of applied economic research) and studied other surveys conducted and finally went ahead with the adapted version of NCAER’s 2005 classification of income.

> anonymity – people who take this survey will definitely be more open, if we don’t ask for their names. their names will not serve any purpose.

So after plenty back and forths and somewhat finalising on the content of the questionnaire – i sent it out to some parents for feedback on whether they understand, or if any words need changing and altering.

One pointed out that the fact that there were too many descriptive questions, it could tire out the survey taker.  – so i re looked at my questions again, and made a final edit – removed questions that i felt were only adding to length, and probably would not help me that much in my final analysis.

Another asked me to add the question about gender – to understand how many parents think that CSA happens mostly to girls and that the actual truth is that boys are more susceptible to being abused. 

PHASE II

What would be the carrier of my survey? – There are plenty of survey providers online, they let you create surveys, add templates and even offer to analyse them for you. At first i thought of Survey Monkey – as i have used this often and it is very user friendly.  However, the free version only let me ask 10 questions. I didn’t want to feel limited. This exercise would give me great insight, and i needed something better.

GOOGLE FORMS TO THE RESCUE! – not only is it easy to use, the answers automatically get stored in spread sheet formats and also generate basic analyses. So it was decided that this would be the carrier of the questionnaire.

PHASE III

Determining the reach of the survey – While a lot of people swear by social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter – there is SO MUCH happening on these sites that people often do not take notice of serious matter. The chance of overlooking a survey on such sites is very high because “survey taking” is mundane, boring and a waste of time. I needed to find something else that would work, so i made a list of people/places that i could get responses from.

> Mommy Bloggers – Believe it or not, it’s another world of bloggers! The super mommy’s in India are heavily into blogging and many of them have supported CSA (they have these CSA Awarness Month Logos) – Which ever blogs had those – i was confident they would fill it up. I even (politely asked) if they would post it on their blogs, and some of them did! Like this one .  If you notice there is a long preamble in the post, this is because i needed to explain exactly what i am doing here. Parents need to understand and trust what they are filling up, where is it going and how is it going to help out – i had to be a lot more vocal and even give them ideas as to what my deliverables could be. I took the liberty to do so, anything that would give me more responses, and better understanding.

> Facebook, Twitter, Emails – This is the done thing i suppose. Sent out plenty personal emails, copy and pasted over and over.

> Parent groups, NGO’s, Counsellors, –  Groups of people and NGO’s with similar causes are always ready to help, especially when it is for a better cause.

Phase IV – Since the questionnaire is still open, phase IV will be the final analysis. 

FINAL QUESTIONNAIRE – https://docs.google.com/forms/d/19p2-aUrzE16XOO-Drgllhj60kco0Xwr-AqUE5scPNU4/viewform