Surveys are useful in describing the characteristics of a large population. No other research method can provide this broad capability, which ensures a more accurate sample to gather targeted results in which to draw conclusions and make important decisions. Surveys can be admininistered in three ways: Visit the following websites for more information about anonymity: Glossary terms related to survey administration: Visit the following websites for more information about questionnaire design: For example, in a face-to-face interview, it is difficult and expensive to survey households across the nation. Instead for master thesis in, researchers will randomly select geographic areas (for example, counties), then randomly select households within these areas. This creates a cluster sample, in which respondents are clustered together geographically. Glossary terms related to sampling procedures: For example, a researcher may administer a survey about marital happiness. However, some respondents may have had a fight with their spouse the evening prior to the survey, while other respondents' spouses may have cooked the respondent's favorite meal. The survey responses will be affected by the random day on which the respondents were chosen to participate in the study. With random error, the positive and negative influences on the survey measure balance out. Glossary terms related to measurement error: Problems arise because surveys can be used to provide information on local issues as well. For example, a librarian may wish to determine whether library users will tolerate increases in interlibrary loan fees, whether searchers are having trouble with a proxy server, or if local administrators approve of library services. A survey can be the best method to uncover this kind of information. However, such surveys are usually not publishable, even as a brief communication, as the questions included relate almost exclusively to local problems. Problem #2: The results cannot be generalized beyond the group of people who answered the survey. Unfortunately, a major problem in all survey research is that respondents are almost always self-selected. Not everyone who receives a survey is likely to answer it, no matter how many times they are reminded or what incentives are offered. If those who choose to respond are different in some important way from those who do not, the results may not reflect the opinions or behaviors of the entire population under study. For example, to identify barriers to nurses' use of information good introductions for essays, a survey should be answered by a representative sample of the nursing population. If only recent graduates of a nursing program, only pediatric nurses, or only nurses who are very annoyed with lack of access to computers in their hospital answer, the results may well be biased and so cannot be generalized to all nurses. Such a survey could be published as a brief communication, if the results were provocative and might stimulate research by others free writing paper samples, but it would not be publishable as a research paper. To determine if a report qualifies for publication as a research study, the JMLA uses the definition of research given by the US Department of Health and Human Services, “a systematic investigation…designed to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge” [2 ]. Problems arise when submitted surveys do not meet these criteria; either the reader cannot generalize from the findings to the population at large and/or the survey does not add to the knowledgebase of health sciences librarianship. If the results seem interesting, the JMLA may publish the paper as a brief communication in the hope that others will follow up with more in-depth investigations. However, many of these problematic surveys could have provided critically needed information, if only they had been done slightly differently. There are three common problems with the surveys that the JMLA receives, and each has a relatively straightforward solution. Send the survey to a representative sample of the population. Use reminders and incentives to obtain a high response rate (over 60%) essays on persuasion, thus minimizing the chances that only those with a particular perspective are answering the survey. And… Problem #3: The answers to the survey questions do not provide the information needed to address the issue at hand. Many times survey questions in studies submitted to the JMLA are ambiguous. Since it is impossible to determine what the answers represent essay on hamlet, the paper must be rejected. A related and more subtle problem occurs when the survey did not ask about all the relevant issues. For example essay strength, a librarian might decide to survey clinicians to identify barriers to their use of mobile devices. She designs a survey that includes questions related to physical barriers, such as screen size, and questions on availability issues book report in a box, such as accessibility of a particular database. The paper reports that the major barriers to use of mobile devices are physical problems with the devices. However scholarship essay for teachers, reviewers may note that there are many other possible barriers to using mobile technology in a clinical setting. Infrastructure issues college admission essays topic, such as wireless connectivity in the hospital, and organizational issues five paragraph essay model, such as policies with respect to using cell phones in front of patients, can be critical factors. As a result, the conclusion of the survey is misleading do i have to do my homework, and the paper cannot be published. Benchmarking surveys provide data on the characteristics of a particular population of individuals, businesses, or organizations. Their intention is not to add to the knowledgebase of a discipline, but instead to provide numerical information that others can use for that purpose. The US Census is an example of a benchmarking survey; the MLA membership survey is another benchmarking tool as are the AAHSL annual survey and many of the surveys undertaken by the Pew Research Center. The data in these surveys are used by others both for practical purposes and for research. Social scientists use census data to develop economic models; academic medical libraries use AAHSL data to justify their budgets; and policy makers use the Pew data to understand social trends in the United States.
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