Conducting,Web-Based,Surveys,N marketing Conducting Web-Based Surveys

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Normal 0 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;mso-style-noshow:yes;mso-style-parent:"";mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;mso-para-margin:0in;mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:widow-orphan;font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman";}Web-based surveyingoffers a number of advantages over more traditional CATI and mail techniques.Web-based surveys are faster and cheaper than telephone and mail surveys, and theyavoid the error-prone, tedious and time-consuming task of data entry. Comparedto old fashioned paper surveys: Paper,postage, mail out, and data entry costs are almost completely eliminated. Oncethe survey is developed, the cost of surveying additional respondents is low. Resultssuch as cross-tabulations can be achieved almost immediately on-line. It iseasy to follow up people surveyed who have not responded. Dataare easily imported into data analysis programs. Web-basedsurveys are also much cheaper and somewhat faster than telephone surveys andagain data entry is less expensive and possibly more accurate because the dataare entered directly by the respondents themselves, not by an interviewer. A major problem withweb-based surveys is sampling. For research applications a random sample isdesirable and often essential, and researchers may simply not have acomprehensive list of email addresses for people who drink fruit juices or goto church. Despite the hugegrowth of the Internet there are still many people who do not have access orchoose not to use the Internet. There are also wide disparities in Internetaccess among ethnic, socioeconomic and demographic groups. For web-basedsurveys the sampling problem is no different from other types of surveys, it isjust that access to a population may be more limited for web-based surveysbecause fewer people have access to the Internet than have telephones or homeaddresses. Even with telephonesurveys and random number dialing through CATI a truly random sample is notguaranteed. Although in many developed nations most people have a landlinetelephone as well, probably, as a mobile phone, in developing nations thelandline is often skipped for direct purchase of a mobile phone and there isusually no central directory for mobile phones. So CATI that uses landlines isincreasingly unlikely to connect with any population. There are of courseother sampling problems with CATI surveys. Not everyone is at home whentelephone surveys are most likely, in the evenings and weekends, so there is asignificant non-response rate, and some people have no telephone at all. CATImay still have the ability to reach most of a population in a countrywhere landline phones predominate but it will never be able to reach allmembers of the population, which is what random sampling requires. So anyattempt to get a true random sample is almost certainly doomed unless thepopulation is well defined and accessible whatever survey method is used. The rapid growth ofthe Internet has impacted on so many different aspects of society that it wouldbe surprising if survey research were an exception. Improved technology has also made web-basedsurveys more practical. Until fairly recently email surveys were thepredominant means of carrying out Internet surveys. Now the use of HypertextMarkup Language (HTML) forms in Web-based surveys are becoming the dominantmethod of gathering survey data. These forms streamline the data collectionprocess and allow the entry of responses directly into a database. Since HTMLforms can be made programmable, this also facilitates real time error checkingwhich increases the accuracy of the data collection process.  The formatting capabilities of HTML also allowthe creation of easy-to-read and attractive forms that may improve responserates. In addition, because HTML forms are programmable questions can berandomly ordered and it is possible to tailor skip and branching options toresponses provided earlier in the survey so that a web-based questionnaire canbe made as flexible as a CATI interview. While sampling may be anissue for web-based survey research, many applications of the technology do notpresent sampling problems. Examples include: companies collectingcustomer satisfaction data, employersmeasuringjob satisfaction, educators collecting course evaluations and conductingexaminations,bloggers wanting to consult with their readers and event organizerschecking proposed attendance and meal and other preferences. While there is still a needfor some caution, until we learn how to use the new technology with confidencethe use of Web-based surveying is growing rapidly and willclearly continue to grow. We offer something new in web-based surveysand that is qualitative research on-line. This Delphibased methodology has all the advantages of focus group research and few of themany disadvantages.