surveys

n. Surveys involve systematically gathering information by asking questions. Surveys typically involve questioning individuals but can also involve organizations or institutions. Survey questions can be asked in telephone or in-person interviews or via selfadministered questionnaires completed on paper or on an Internet Web site. Surveys typically involve gathering data from a subsample of a larger population (often with the goal of surveying a representative sample). Questions asked in a survey are also usually standardized (i.e., questions are asked in the same way to each respondent), and responses to survey questions are typically quantified into categories for aggregation and analysis.  – ALH