Survey Research

Over the past week our PR Research class has discussed one of the most used research method called survey research.  Survey research is both very popular in the professional setting, as well as the academic setting.  Until we discussed the different scholarly uses of the academic approach of using a survey I was not aware of how often it is used in academia.  Surveys are great when it comes to the inexpensiveness and quick response they get.  Also, the fact that surveys are quantitative it is much easier for the researcher to compare numbers statistically rather than measuring the behaviors of people.


Within the medical field, the Center for Survey Research affiliated with University of Massachusetts Boston has been conducting several different experiments using survey research.  They divided the survey subjects into two different areas of focus.  The first experiment was measuring whether the studying of certain treatments on the patients for purposes of developing new cures was ethical or not.  The second experiment was how medical ethics studies focus on the different ways academic health centers discover and manage conflicts of interest in their conduct of medical research. 


Big Public Relations sites such as PR Newswire even includes information on medicine and surveys.  A featured article I found on their site was about the top 10 medical innovations suspected to be introduced in 2011 and the research was conducted through surveys. Overall survey research is a very valuable method of research to researchers especially when it comes to the inexpensiveness, quickness of results, and the comparability of the end statistics.