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The Technological Revolution in Survey Data Collection
Abstract
Surveys—data collection based on standardized questionnaires— started with censuses thousands of years ago. However, it was only in the 1930s, following some breakthrough developments in applied statistics, that the sample survey data collection approach was widely acknowledged. The possibility of inferring about the total population from samples of 300 or 1,000 units radically expanded the potential of survey data collection. In addition to sampling, survey data collection procedures also rely on a proper measurement instrument (i.e., a survey questionnaire) as well as effective administrative and managerial activities. Since the 1930s, opinion polling has become a major tool of democratic development (Gallup & Rae, 1968). Official statistics have recognized the enormous potential of survey data collection for the fast estimation of crops, industry outputs, unemployment, and so forth. Further, the marketing and media industries obtained a tool to effectively measure the characteristics of their target groups. The survey industry has therefore become an established activity with its own associations (e.g., ESOMAR, AAPOR), codes of conduct, publications, conferences, professional profiles, and large multinational companies generating annual revenues worth billions of dollars (e.g., A.C. Nielsen). Surveys were traditionally performed as personal interviews, over the telephone or in the form of selfadministrated questionnaires. Information-communication technology (ICT) developments introduced radical changes to the survey data collection processes, particularly because the core of this activity is manipulation with the information itself. The early implementations of ICT in survey data collection are linked to computer developments. Mass computerization started with the emerging PC in the 1980s and enabled computer-assisted survey information collection (CASIC), firstly with the introductionn of computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI). In the late 1980s, portable computers started to be used with face-to-face interview data collection, leading to computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI). When personal computers started to become the mainstream, computerized self-administered questionnaires (CSAQ) were implemented in various forms. The last crucial milestone came in the 1990s with the rise of the Internet, which enabled e-mail and Web-based types of CSAQ. This started a new stream of ICT development which is radically transforming the entire survey industry. Internet-based data collection will soon become the mainstream survey mode. Studies for 2005 projected that market research organizations worldwide would generate over a billion dollars in revenue on the basis of Internet surveys (Terhanian & Bremer, 2005). In addition, about 40% of research work in the USA in 2003-2004 was conducted on the Internet (E-consultancy, 2004).
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