Research in music education
A "survey" is a systematic method of collecting information on one or more variables. An example of a survey study is a 1998 study by Gillespie and Hamann. The purpose of the study was to gather descriptive information about orchestra programs that can be used as baseline data when considering the needs of school string programs. The findings indicated a continued enrollment increase in school orchestras in the 1990s although the number of orchestra teachers remained stable, and that larger schools are more likely to offer orchestra instruction. The impact of the study was the recommendation that school systems should provide larger, more adequate teaching facilities and that universities and string teachers should emphasize strategies for teaching larger string classes in their teacher preparation programs.
Survey data collection
Online (Internet) surveys are becoming an essential research tool for a variety of research fields, including marketing, social and official statistics research. According to ESOMAR online survey research accounted for 20% of global data-collection expenditure in 2006. They offer capabilities beyond those available for any other type of self-administered questionnaire. Online consumer panels are also used extensively for carrying out surveys but the quality is considered inferior because the panelists are regular contributors and tend to be fatigued. However, when estimating the measurement quality (defined as product of reliability and validity) using a multitrait-mutlimethod approach (MTMM), some studies found a quite reasonable quality and even that the quality of a series of questions in an online opt-in panel (Netquest) was very similar to the measurement quality for the same questions asked in the European Social Survey (ESS), which is a face-to-face survey.
Some studies have compared the quality of face-to-face surveys and/or telephone surveys with that of online surveys, for single questions, but also for more complex concepts measured with more than one question (also called Composite Scores or Index). Focusing only on probability-based surveys (also for the online ones), they found overall that the face-to-face (using show-cards) and web surveys have quite similar levels of measurement quality, whereas the telephone surveys were performing worse.
Other studies comparing paper-and-pencil questionnaires with web-based questionnaires showed that employees preferred online survey approaches to the paper-and-pencil format.
There are also concerns about what has been called "ballot stuffing" in which employees make repeated responses to the same survey. Some employees are also concerned about privacy. Even if they do not provide their names when responding to a company survey, can they be certain that their anonymity is protected? Such fears prevent some employees from expressing an opinion.
These issues, and potential remedies, are discussed in a number of sources.