Transcript PPT
USE OF SOCIOLOGICAL SURVEYS FOR ASSESSING ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION NEEDS Mariya Potabenko GRID-Arendal Guest-researcher Content • • • • • • Why sociological surveys? Methodology Qualitative surveys Quantitative surveys Content-analysis surveys Internet surveys Methodology • • • • Subject Object Hypotheses Principal plan of a survey • Investigative • Descriptive • Analytical • Scales construction and sample design Qualitative surveys • Focus-group discussions • In-depth interviewing • Expert interviewing • Other qualitative surveys Focus-group discussions • Target group of 6-12 persons, moderator, non-formalized conversation • +: Discovers motivation of actions and a variety of opinions • - : Group influence; no opportunity to discuss personal questions • Ex: Marketing surveys In-depth interviewing • 1-2 respondents, non-formalized and nonstructured conversation • +: Discusses personal questions; discovers attitudes of people who are difficult to reach or put together • -: Only valid for interviewed individuals • Ex: Obtaining primary or personal information about organization or state of issue Expert interviewing • Specially selected experts; interview is structured and either formalized or nonformalized • +: Discovers opinions of professionals; gives an opportunity to get relevant advices or ideas; helps to discover hypotheses • -: Sampling needs special techniques • Ex: Environmental policy making, policy papers preparing Other qualitative surveys • Observation • Group methods • Brainstorming • Conflict groups • Group interviewing/questioning Quantitative methods • Face-to-face (individual) interviewing • Mail surveys • Telephone surveys Face-to-face (individual) interviewing • Interviewer reads questions and registers answers • +: Questionnaire can be long and include complicated questions • -: Interviewer influences respondent • Ex: National survey on environmental awareness Mail survey • Questionnaires are sent to randomly selected respondents • +: Relatively cheap; anonymity and interviewer-related bias is absent • -: Low rate of responses; fieldwork takes long time; respondents can skip questions Telephone survey • Randomly selected respondents are contacted by phone. Answers are registered by interviewer. • +: Fast turnaround time of a survey; preference of verbal communication • -: Interviewer influence a respondent, voice misunderstandings, blocking telecom systems Content-analysis survey • Press texts are selected and studied. Context, number of certain words and their density are analyzed. • +: Analysis of mass media involvement and influence on social processes • -: A studied problem is not necessarily covered by mass media; high costs; unclear representativity • Ex: Elections, referendums. Internet surveys • Questionnaire is located on a web site. Interested users answer it. • +: Interactivity; low cost; easy data processing • -: No control over respondents; unclear representativity; access to a researcher’s server • Ex: Interviewing target audience in different countries and regions simultaneously