An online survey is a structured questionnaire that your target audience completes over the internet generally through a filling out a form. Online surveys can vary in length and format.
The purpose of doing an online survey is to collect data, as with any traditional survey. If you stumble across a topic that you want to do research on whether it’s market research for your product or survey, or research into industry trends you’ve found an opportunity to conduct a survey.
Online Surveys
Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI)
Computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) refers to survey data collection by an in-person interviewer (i.e. face-to-face interviewing) who uses a computer to administer the questionnaire to the respondent and captures the answers onto the computer.
CAPI method can enhance the quality of survey data in a number of ways:
➢ Routing problems within the questionnaire are eliminated
➢ Interviewers cannot miss questions or ask the wrong questions
➢ Questions are ‘customized’ correctly
➢ Mathematical calculations can be carried out within the program
➢ The computer checks for inadmissible or inconsistent responses
➢ Errors from separate data entry are eliminated.
Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI)
Computer assisted telephone interviewing is a survey technique where an interviewer follows a script provided by a software application. The software can be customized so that the questions are based on the answers that a respondent provides.
CATI surveys give researchers greater control over the amount of responses that are collected. Responses are often collected ‘there-and-then’, meaning there’s no chance of surveys being misplaced or just forgotten about. Non-responses are often minimized by recontacting individuals who are out or too busy to finish the survey.
CATI provides the following advantages:
➢ More efficient data collection, because the interviewer enters answers directly into the computer rather than sending a paper questionnaire for a separate data capture step.
➢ More efficient and more accurate questionnaire administration, because the computer delivers the questions to the interviewer in the correct programmed sequence, including any required rotations, randomizations, or insertions of information from a separate file or from earlier within the interview.
➢ More accurate data collection, because the computer can apply various range and logic edits as the answers are entered.
Pencil and Paper Interview (PAPI)
Pencil and paper interview are one of the techniques of collecting data in a market research. The interviewer proceeds by question after question according to the questionnaire and the respondent answers. The interviewer records the answers to the questionnaire. In order the answers are representative, the respondents should be selected as a random or targeted sample. SampleHub is having expertise using experienced interviewers for personal interviewing, where the interviewer holds the printed-out questionnaire, reads the question to the respondent and fills the answers into the questionnaire
Telephone Survey
A telephone survey is one among the survey methods utilized in collecting data either from the overall population or from a selected target population. Telephone numbers are utilized by trained interviewers to contact and gather information from possible respondents.
Telephone interviewing is an in-between methodology serving because the median between F2F interviews and surveys/panels. As a way of collecting primary, qualitative data, telephone interviews are getting the well-liked method as they deliver top quality response with less timing and price commitments of F2F interview.
Advantages of Telephone interviews
➢ These are more cost effective and easier to conduct than F2F interviews
➢ Can deliver similar quality data
➢ Multiple points of view can be gathered through multiple interviews
➢ Interviews can be conducted over a wider geographic scope, even globally
➢ Answers to questions are equally as valid as F2F interviews.