Research Methods

Part one

• What are the steps in conducting a survey?
• Considering “How we undercounted evictions …,” why should triangulation and mixed methods become an essential step in survey research?

Part two

• Write five survey questions about housing insecurity (evictions, etc.; see MARS for examples) that commit the five common survey question mistakes.
• Rewrite the above five survey questions according to the characteristics of high-quality survey questions.

Part three

• How is the order of survey questions important? Provide an example of both a problematic order and an appropriate order of survey questions (a minimum of three questions).
• According to the NPR interview, how did the national survey on conspiracy beliefs present questions on such beliefs?

Part four

• What are ethical issues to consider in survey research?

Part five

• Define the following: survey; primary data; secondary data; cross-sectional survey; longitudinal survey
• What are the strengths of surveys?
• What are the sources of errors in surveys (including sampling; refer to the previous section on sampling)?