Chapter 15 Review Questions and Exercises
1. Which survey method (mailed, face-to-face interview, telephone interview, or e-mail) would you choose to administer a structured questionnaire for each of the following scenarios? State the reasons for your choice and identify any additional information that would make it easier to choose among these four options.
a. National survey of parents of children in treatment for psychotic disorders. The parents are members of the National Association for the Mentally Ill. The purpose of the survey is to assess the way the mental health professionals have related to the parents and the parents’ satisfaction with the services provided to their children.
b. National survey of licensed mental health professionals who treat children with psychotic disorders. The purpose of the survey is to assess how the mental health professionals view the causes of childhood psychoses and working with parents.
c. Survey of the students in your school of social work to assess how they view the causes of childhood psychoses and working with parents of children in treatment for psychosis.
2. If you were to conduct a mail survey for each of the above scenarios, what would you do to maximize the response rate?
3. Locate a survey being conducted on the web. Briefly describe the survey and discuss its strengths and weaknesses.
4. Look at your appearance right now. Identify aspects of your appearance that might create a problem if you were interviewing a general cross section of the public.
Chapter 15 InfoTrac/Internet Exercises
1. Use InfoTrac College Edition to find a study in a social work journal (such as Social Work or Health and Social Work) that used a survey design. Identify the strengths and weaknesses of the survey methods used in the study.
2. Go to the following site that deals with online survey methodology: www.websm.org/. Briefly describe something you find there that makes you more optimistic or more skeptical about the likelihood of obtaining representative samples of respondents when using online surveys in social work research.
3. Go to the following site on the Gallup Poll: www.gallup.com/. Once there, look for information on how Gallup Polling is conducted. (As of this writing, the information can be found in the FAQs under “How does Gallup Polling work?” which links to a 6-page document, “How Polls Are Conducted.”) Briefly summarize what you learn there and why you think the Gallup survey methodology is or is not likely to yield accurate, representative findings.
4. Go to the following United States Bureau of the Census website: www.census.gov, and select QuickFacts. Once there, select your state. Click on the map of your state that appears on your screen. A map with county names will then appear. Click on your county. Find the estimated percentage of all people and of children in your county who live in poverty.