Survey (human research)
Survey research is often used to assess thoughts, opinions, and feelings. Surveys can be specific and limited, or they can have more global, widespread goals. Psychologists and sociologists often use surveys to analyze behavior, while it is also used to meet the more pragmatic needs of the media, such as, in evaluating political candidates, public health officials, professional organizations, and advertising and marketing directors. A survey consists of a predetermined set of questions that is given to a sample. With a representative sample, that is, one that is representative of the larger population of interest, one can describe the attitudes of the population from which the sample was drawn. Further, one can compare the attitudes of different populations as well as look for changes in attitudes over time. A good sample selection is key as it allows one to generalize the findings from the sample to the population, which is the whole purpose of survey research.
World Bank Governance Surveys
The diagnostic tool aims to address two of the fundamental challenges policy makers face when trying to curb corruption and improve governance: (i) to obtain the most relevant type of information to identify priorities for reform; and (ii) to create the conditions for sustaining the reform process over time. The results of the surveys allows countries to unbundle corruption (administrative, state capture, bidding, theft of public resources, purchase of licenses); identify weak and strong institutions; assess the costs of corruption to different stakeholders; and identify concrete and measurable ways to reduce those costs. The ultimate goal is to improve the quality of public services by improving governance in personnel and resource management, access to services and citizen feedback mechanisms by feeding into participatory and targeted reform planning.