Survey research is a quantitative method, requiring standardized information from and/or about the subject being studied such as individuals, groups, organizations, or communities. The survey, if carried out systematically is widely reported as an efficient way of collecting a large amount of data especially to survey patient satisfaction or feedback. It can also be a low-cost approach, depending on the data collection method. The survey is well suited for answering questions about what, how much, how many, and to a greater extent than, questions about how and why are commonly understood. In addition, a survey is applicable when the phenomena of interest occur in the current time or the recent past. Patient satisfactions surveys are used to identify gaps and to inform quality improvement plans in healthcare organisation and health systems.
However, a number of criticisms of surveys were also noted
- Though a survey can establish a statistical link, that does not necessarily mean there is a causal relationship between variables.
- Surveys cannot get the meaning behind the social activity. This involves the beliefs and attitudes of individuals, their memories and goals and so on,
- Surveys consider particular aspects of people’s beliefs without considering their context. Taken out of context, beliefs and behaviours are easily misinterpreted.
- Surveys are based only on rigid ideas of hypotheses testing and produce statistics from a mass of facts, but this proves nothing of the theoretical value.
- Survey research is inflexible to discoveries (relatively poorer ‘discoverability’) made during data collection
Possible responses to these criticisms were considered in developing the use of a survey for the research reported here. In particular, the following issues were addressed in the development, execution, and analysis of the survey.
- “Survey research can go a long way towards arriving at such ‘meaningful’ explanations” (with theory construction followed by empirical research). The questionnaire contains not only factual data but also questions on attitudes. As well as further confirmation of results was obtained from carrying out interviews with selected participants, during which certain points were clarified.
- The results of theoretical value from a survey are only as good as the theories motivating the survey questions, so care was taken to develop a suitable set of theories and hypotheses.
- The surveys are among the more popular methods used by research community. Their argument includes (1) surveys provide responses that can be generalized to other members of the population studied and often to other similar populations and (2) surveys help confirm and quantify the findings of qualitative research
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