Marketing survey: types, goals, methods. Types of surveys and features of their use

If you ask any business owner what his main goal is, he will almost certainly end up saying in one way or another about growth.

Naturally, business owners want their company's revenue to grow over time. To do this, of course, a business must not only continually increase the number of customers it serves, but also improve the quality (and possibly quantity) of the products or services it provides to consumers.

“Get closer — like never before — to your customers. So close, in fact, that you know what they need before they even know it.” — Steve Jobs

These days, trying to expand client base or improve your own, you definitely should not do this, relying only on intuition. Not only will this almost certainly result in a waste of time, money, and energy, but it will also be almost impossible to determine if your efforts are bearing fruit.

Only a strategic approach to such improvements will increase your chances of business growth and, in addition, will allow you to determine the effectiveness of your efforts.

The first step to take when you plan to optimize your business is to conduct market research. This will give you a much more reasonable idea of the direction you should take.

In this article, we will discuss the important role of customer surveys in market research and explain how you can use the results of these activities to quickly and radically improve your business.

But before we delve into the topic, let's give a precise definition of what marketing research is, what it consists of, and why it is so important for business.

Market research: what is it and why is it important to you

In its broadest sense, market research is the process of validating a product or service (or such aspect) by measuring the extent to which your target customer is interested in it.

More specifically, when conducting market research, you will study and analyze information about your customers, competitors, and your company's performance in your industry.

The purposes that market research serves are (but this is not a complete list):

Assessing the Opportunity of a New Business or Enterprise
Determination of the level of interest of the target customer segment in a new product or service (or its characteristics)
Analysis of your company's ability to enter a new market
Identifying trends in the industry your company belongs to
Fine tune your marketing mix and optimize your marketing efforts
Differentiating your brand from competitors
Improving processes within your organization as a whole

By gaining an understanding of the above information, you will be in a better position to wide opportunities in order to:

Determine the value of your company for your customers, as well as its true purpose - primarily for existing consumers of a product or service.
Focus your resources and efforts on rewarding activities that your customers find useful.
Set goals and milestones to determine if your efforts have been successful.

In essence, doing market research allows you to focus “with laser precision” on the growth that will occur when you make any changes to your company's processes. In other words, you will be sure that the changes you make will play a tangible (positive) role for your business as a whole.

Two types of market research

Primary studies are those that the company (or contracting party) conducts directly.

There are two main branches within primary customer-focused research:

Exploratory Research: broad, open-ended discussions with clients that help identify key issues.
Specific research (Specific Research): discussions largely focused on issues identified during the study studies and conducted with the aim of ensuring a concentrated increase in growth in the future.

Because the information you gather through primary research is unique (and also yours as your private property), it is inherently extremely valuable. Data like this can give you insights into your industry that no other company will be privy to, giving you a huge edge over your competitors.

You may also conduct secondary research, which primarily consists of examining information that has already been collected and made public by competing companies and/or third party research companies. The problem with secondary research is that the data presented may be outdated, irrelevant to your goals, or inaccurate. With that said, secondary research can act as a kind of starting point to help you focus on further advancing your own primary research.

	Primary Research	secondary research
Initial data was collected...	By you (or a company you hire)	By someone else
Examples	Focus groups Interview Observations Experiments	Information collection does not apply; the act of examining existing data and is secondary research
Qualitative or quantitative method?		Either the first or the second can be used
Main advantages	Tailored to your needs, you control the quality of the data	Usually performed cheaply and quickly
Main disadvantages	The cost is usually higher, it takes more time	Data may be out of date and/or fit your needs

Be that as it may, in order to achieve the objectives of this article, we will focus on primary research methods.

Conducting primary market research

As already mentioned, primary market research is the one that takes place with the direct participation of your company.

In other words, it requires more than simply studying information previously published by someone. To obtain primary research data, you need to actively engage with your clients.

Some of the most popular primary market research tactics are:

Product testing
Focus groups
Direct observation of clients

Depending on your company's ability to conduct such research, you may use more than one of these tactics. Naturally, the more strategies you implement, the more complete the picture will be presented to you by the information collected.

In addition, you should always strive to supplement the information you collect by providing surveys to clients related to their experience (both within a specific study and in relation to your company as a whole).

Using Surveys to Complement Market Research

The main purpose of conducting surveys is to provide your clients with an additional opportunity to provide more details and/or clarify statements they made - or actions they may have taken - during the initial survey (as discussed above).

The advantage of using surveys is that you can customize your line of questions to get the information you have identified as critical to achieving your current goals. (This is why it is critical to define the purpose of your marketing research before than doing anything else as part of your further initiative.)

The types of surveys we'll discuss in the following sections provide valuable insights into customers and their interactions with your product or service (and brand in general), as well as data about the industry your company operates in.

Again, if you have the ability to do so, we suggest using everyone of the survey methods mentioned to help design the changes you plan to make in the future.

Customer Experience Surveys

As we mentioned earlier, the main way to promote growth within your company is to focus on improving the service you provide to your customers.

To do this, you need to understand how your company currently looks to customers. In turn, you'll get a better idea of what you're doing right, as well as where you might need to make some improvements in the near future.

Consider the types of the most common surveys used in marketing research.

1. Net Promoter Score (NPS) score

These profiles will include the following information related to your customers:

Demographic and geographic data
Behavioral Data
Psychographic Data

While each answer you receive is likely to be at least somewhat unique, there will certainly be many similarities between them. You will want to take these similarities into account in order to create your archetypal client profile.

Take a look at the following profile example:

For a company that sells beauty products or similar services, this profile has just about everything you need to know about the target person in order to create a marketing campaign that will grab their attention and convince them to make a purchase.

Without this information, said company may be wasting valuable time, money, and energy creating marketing campaigns and other initiatives that, unfortunately, will be largely ignored by the targeted customer base.

Amalgamated analytics surveys are used to model the new product purchase experience, allowing you to exactly find out exactly what your customers are looking for.

Although pooled analytic reviews come in a wide variety of formats, they typically call on the client being surveyed to compare two or more products (of a similar nature), evaluating a range of their features as well as prices.

Take a look at the following example:

Here, customers are encouraged to choose between three different laptops. Each product is made by its own brand, has unique strengths and weak sides in terms of CPU clock speed, volume random access memory and monitor sizes and is offered at an unbeatable price.

Once the selection is made, the customer will be presented with the same question, but some specifications of each product will be the same (for example, all monitors may be listed as 17 inches). This process is then repeated until the enough data in order to show which characteristic is of most concern to a particular client.

(Let's say in the example above, the customer continues to consistently choose the laptop with the highest CPU power—regardless of changes in other specifications. This, of course, will make it clear that CPU speed is the customer's primary determinant in terms of buying a new laptop.)

The purpose of combined analytics surveys is to determine which features of your product are most interesting to your customers - and which they consider redundant. By identifying this information, you can focus on optimizing the parts of your product that matter to your target audience (rather than spending time perfecting minor details and aspects).

Even in the absence of an assessment of the experience of interaction of their target customers with your company, you can still learn a lot about them by conducting surveys related to their buying personas. In fact, the more you know about who your customers are as individuals and as consumers, the better prepared you will be to optimize their customer experience within your company.

Conclusion

The more you know about your customers, the better you can serve them.

By actively taking the time to learn as much as you can about them, you're giving yourself a great opportunity to offer them exactly what they're looking for. Sometimes - even before they know it!

Don't forget to create a separate landing page for each poll with .

Polls are very popular and convenient way receiving feedback. How and why to conduct them on the website and in social networks - read in this article.

So let's go!

Why conduct surveys?

Polls – efficient view content that allows you to establish a strong connection between the brand and the audience and learn their opinion about the company's activities, which will further help to improve the product or service. That is, the survey provides real data that can be used to make better business decisions.

What tasks can be solved with the help of surveys?

Surveys allow you to solve the following tasks:

1. Real and free product reviews

Many companies face difficulties when trying to get consumers' opinions about a product. Clients are stubbornly silent, and in response to a direct request, they write a standard reply like “everyone is cool, thanks guys are the best.” There are two ways out of this situation: to carry out expensive volume marketing research or publish simple free surveys, getting a real response from the audience on the site or in social networks.

I think most of you would choose the second option. And for good reason - after all, conducting a survey allows you to get feedback on your products without spending a lot of effort, time and money.

2. Understanding the needs and motives of the audience's behavior

Surveys allow you to identify the expectations and needs of the audience. This can help in planning and developing new products, improving business processes. Knowing about the needs of customers, you protect yourself from serious punctures.

3. Creation and development of the community

Surveys increase engagement and stimulate discussion. By participating in them, each consumer understands that communication with the company is two-way. Thus, the group of subscribers turns into a living community, whose members interact with the brand and with each other.

To grow your community with polls, show that you are interested in the opinions of users. Share with participants the results of voting and decisions made.

4. Content creation

With surveys, you create three types of content. First, you talk about the prerequisites for holding a vote and describe its conditions. Secondly, you share the results with users. Third, consumers participate in discussions by creating user-generated content.

5. Increase attendance

Conducting surveys increases page traffic in social network and on the site. For this rule to work, encourage users to share voting information. You can also use tools that automatically report that a user has taken a survey.

Types of surveys

Consider what types of surveys are depending on the place of their distribution.

First of all, you need to know that there are mass and expert surveys. We will consider the classification of mass surveys.

There are oral and written surveys, and written surveys are most often conducted on the Internet.

Among them, depending on the place of distribution, the following types can be distinguished:

Surveys on the site.

Publishing to the site convenient option posting a survey, but it won't be enough. If only because only those who visited the site and became interested in the poll will vote.

Polls in social networks.

Surveys sent by email.

This distribution method is good because the survey is sent to the client individually.

Polls in messengers.

With the growing popularity of instant messengers, the popularity of using them to solve marketing problems is also growing. Thus, you can conduct a survey by creating a mailing list of messages in Viber, WhatsApp, Telegram and other instant messengers.

SMS surveys.

This type of survey, on the one hand, can expand the reach of the audience - at the expense of people who do not have an Internet connection. But, on the other hand, if the response to the survey is paid, this may scare away potential respondents. Yes, in general this way surveys are ineffective.

If we consider oral surveys, then a survey conducted with the personal presence of the client is an extremely rare phenomenon. But the telephone survey is very popular in business. It is very effective to measure customer satisfaction with a company's products or services—sales teams often use it to determine NPS.

Telephone surveys allow not only to find out the opinion of customers, but also to find out any details during the conversation, to follow the reaction of the interlocutor, his mood swings, etc.

A really good survey is able to completely capture the attention of users, forcing them to distract from their activities and immerse themselves in the process of filling out the questionnaire. To achieve this, it is important to take into account some nuances.

1. Choose a Good Poll Location

This nuance must be taken into account when publishing a survey on the site. It is very important to place it in a conspicuous place. home page so that users can immediately find it. Many sites place polls in the sidebar with spaces so that the poll is visible but not intrusive.

2. Choose a relevant topic that will arouse sincere interest among respondents

A well-designed survey should consist of questions that are interesting to respondents and generate various discussions. Therefore, it is important to choose a relevant topic for the survey that would hook your target audience. If this happens, you will be able to receive not only feedback, but also new observations and knowledge that can be applied in their work.

3. Give respondents a chance to be heard

So you chose interesting topic for your survey. Now is the time to make sure you give respondents the opportunity to answer exactly the way they want. Review your answer options and make sure you provide wide selection, - people prefer to choose answers that can clearly identify their thoughts.

4. Extend the process of respondent engagement

5. Don't ask questions about the future

As a rule, questions about what a person will do next do not lead to reliable answers - after all, everyone can talk, but not everyone can take and do it. It is much more reasonable to ask about what people have already done, what decision they have made. And you will know whether to expect any action from the respondent.

6. Don't ask too many open-ended questions

To ensure that surveys provide you with structured data, use closed questions. Use, for example, question types such as multiple choice or comparison questions that have multiple answers. So, instead of asking "What do you think of our products?" a better question is "Which statement most closely matches your impression of our products?". And provide answers.

Another advantage of closed surveys is that they allow you to quickly analyze (by obtaining structured data). Such a quick analysis will allow you to conduct regular surveys without making a Herculean effort. This is especially necessary for large brands or multi-brand companies.

By the way, you should not completely exclude open-ended questions either - although they are complex, they give more detailed answers.

7. Keep your survey short

If the survey is long, the respondents will quickly get tired of it and are unlikely to be able to complete it to the end.

8. Indicate that the survey is conducted by your company

Be sure to indicate that the survey is conducted by your company if you do not want to be mistaken for spam.

9. Avoid Leading Questions

It is highly likely that the respondent will answer leading questions not the way he thinks, but the way you want. So questions like “How did you like our last article?” better not to use.

10. Offer a Reward for Completing a Survey

To encourage customers to complete the survey, offer them some kind of reward. It could be a discount code or content, anything, and it doesn't cost that much.

To evaluate this or that program in a broad sense means to compare the indicators of interest before and after the implementation of the program, on the basis of which conclusions can be drawn regarding its effectiveness. However, such a comparison requires a large array of reliable comparable data for at least two periods, without which the results of the program implementation will remain undetected. The most obvious way to collect the necessary data is through surveys.

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Poll (English) poll) - a method of collecting information from the words of the respondent.

One of the main problems of program evaluation is obtaining high-quality and reliable data, the collection of which can be very costly both in terms of time and money. Therefore, to ensure that efforts are not wasted, it is especially important to follow the basic principles when conducting a survey.

Basic principles of conducting a survey

The survey should be conducted on a representative sample: the sample of interviewees should include representatives of all major groups affected by the program in order to obtain reliable data that correspond to reality
The sample size needs to be carefully considered: due to the significant resource constraints, the optimal survey scale should be chosen, within the budget, but still allowing to obtain a sufficient amount of information.
The survey questionnaire should be practically useful: the result of the survey should be the receipt of information important for the evaluation of the program, as a result of which the questions should be designed in such a way that the respondents can give meaningful answers to them, and the researcher can obtain valuable information for him
The answers received should be reliable and unbiased: during the survey, respondents should not have a desire to distort information. By designing the questions correctly, the problem of response bias can be avoided, thereby obtaining reliable data.
Before conducting the survey, it is necessary to study the existing data: the information of interest to the researcher could have been collected before him by non-governmental organizations or government bodies. This will significantly expand the amount of knowledge available on the issue under study, and will also help to significantly reduce our own costs of collecting information.

However, obtaining really high-quality and necessary research information requires not only following the basic principles. Who needs to be interviewed to obtain comparable data that speaks to the effectiveness of the ongoing program? When should it be done? The answers to these questions are established within the study design.

Study Design

Study Design (English) research design) - a form of research, which, among other things, specifies a method for collecting comparable data to evaluate the effectiveness of the program. By emphasizing the use of comparative data to interpret the effect of a program, it is the design of the study that determines whether the identified changes are a consequence of the implementation of the program being evaluated, or are the fruits of external variables.

Among various types research design can be divided into two main categories: experimental (eng. true-experimental design) and quasi-experimental design (eng. quasi-experimental design).

Experimental design

Experimental design (English) experimental design) is a method of conducting a study in which the objects of study (students, teachers, pensioners - that is, the target audience of the program) are randomly distributed into two groups: the group exposed to the program and the control group, that is, the base for comparison. One of the most commonly used experimental designs is the randomized sample design.

Random Sample Design (English r andomized control trials - RTC) is a form of holding pilot study, in which the effects of one or more interventions are assessed based on a random randomized assignment of subjects to treatment and control groups. The randomized distribution of objects into groups means that each of them has the same chance of being in the program. The experimental group is exposed to the program while the control group is not and is used as a baseline for comparison. After the implementation of the program, by interviewing all groups, the researchers try to understand how significant the changes in the experimental group are compared to the control group.

Only random distribution gives confidence that the groups are indeed comparable, and the observed differences in the results are not due to extraneous factors or pre-existing differences. For example, what conclusion can be drawn from the fact that the exposed group of students showed top scores than the control group, if the first group of students before the program was taught by more qualified and creative teachers than the second? Is the observed difference between the groups to be explained by the effect of the program or by the inherent differences between them? A random distribution of students into groups would only show the effect of the program.

Limitations of Experimental Designs

However, the use of experimental design has its limitations. Experimental design is generally unsuitable for the analysis of complex programs where, as in most political programs, the results obtained are the result of the simultaneous interaction of several factors at once, which experimental design in most cases cannot capture.

Problems arise because the researcher is unable to eliminate the impact of all possible external factors, and sometimes this is not necessary. Indeed, in reality, the random distribution of students does not look plausible, and the goal of implementing any program is to influence the distribution of objects that takes place in reality in different territories. This means that the effectiveness of the program often needs to be evaluated in conjunction with external factors. As a result, within a randomized sample, it is difficult to assess the causal relationship between outcomes and factors, which means that the effectiveness of the program and methods for improving it can hardly be determined.

Quasi-experimental design (English) quasi-experimental design) - a way of conducting research in which the emphasis is shifted from the probability distribution and causal relationships of experimental designs to the analysis of the interaction between variables. Quasi-experimental designs are commonly used in program evaluation when random allocation is not possible or practical. However, despite their frequency of use, quasi-experimental designs have some interpretational problems. Frequently used types of quasi-experimental designs include multiple non-equivalent group designs ( nonequivalent group design) and time series design ( time-series design).

Design of non-equivalent groups

Non-Equivalent Group Design with Post-Intervention Scoring (English) Nonequivalent group, posttest only) includes the measurement of results through interviews in two experimental groups, but only after the implementation of the program. For example, one group of students could receive reading instruction on foreign language using the exercises and rules of the entire course as a whole, the other is just an instruction on phonetics. And after two weeks, a screening test would show which of the two programs was more effective. However, the main drawback is the problem of interpreting the results obtained, since it becomes unclear whether the best reading results of one group are the result of the implementation of the program, or whether the groups initially differed in their ability to foreign languages.

Design of non-equivalent groups with evaluation before and after the intervention (English) Nonequivalent group, pretest-posttest) partially eliminates main disadvantage previous design with evaluation only after the intervention. Within the framework of this design, the researcher at the very beginning of the experiment empirically evaluates the differences between the two groups - that is, evaluation takes place before the program. Thus, if the researcher, when evaluating changes after the program, finds that one of the groups showed better results, he can exclude the influence of the initial differences in favor of this group (if there were none) or, on the contrary, draw conclusions regarding the influence of this factor, coupled with the impact programs.

One to one design

feature one to one design (English) One to one matched comparison group design) is that both the experimental and control groups are selected after the implementation of the study program. The experimental group is recruited from those who were influenced by the program, those who themselves decided not to participate in this program, but fit all the characteristics and received an “invitation”, are included in the comparison base. Thus, this design wins over the others in that the comparison takes place between two completely identical groups of people in the past: as if before and after the program. However, in practice it turns out to be very difficult to find such a control group, since some external factors always take place.

Time series design

Time series design (English) time series design) includes repeated assessment of current changes in two groups - control and experimental - both before the program and during its implementation. A series of observations of the two groups provides comprehensive information about the gradual changes under the influence of the program, which means that the design is most sensitive to determining the overall trend of the changes taking place. However, despite all the advantages, the time series design, although to a lesser extent, has all the disadvantages and limitations of quasi-experimental designs.

Literature

Campbell DT, Stanley JC: Experimental and Quasi-experimental Designs for Research. Chicago: Rand-McNally, 1963
Cook TD, Campbell DT: Quasi-experimentation. Chicago: Rand-McNally, 1979
David M. Streinberg, William G. Hunter Experimental design: review and comment. University of Wisconsin, Madison 1984
John Bynner Experimental research strategy and evaluation research designs. British Educational Research Journal, 1980
Introductory Guide to Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA)

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§ 2. The use of surveys in socio-psychological diagnostics

Survey methods are the most common in the work of practical social psychologists.

The survey as a whole is understood as a method of purposefully obtaining verbal (oral or written) information about socio-psychological phenomena through correspondence (mediated by a questionnaire) or face-to-face (direct) communication of a practical psychologist (or questionnaire, interviewer) with the respondents (respondents). As a result, assessments, opinions, attitudes, perception stereotypes, etc. are revealed.

There are two main types of surveys: interviews and questionnaires. Interviewing involves direct communication between the interviewer and the respondent (interviewee) using an interview questionnaire. Moreover, this questionnaire is in the hands of the interviewer throughout the conversation. Questions are asked orally. In the same form, the answers of the respondents are given, which are recorded by the interviewer in the interview questionnaire or on a standardized form with coded numbers of questions and possible answers to them, or using a voice recorder on magnetic tape (when it comes to in-depth interviews to study personality problems for the purpose of subsequent studying not only the verbal, but also the non-verbal response of the respondent to the questions asked).

The interviews differ for several reasons. According to the degree of formalization (standardization), interviews are divided into formalized and non-formalized (free, non-standardized, deep, high-quality). In a formalized (standardized) interview, both the wording of questions and their sequence are strictly defined by the authors of the methodology, and deviation from the accepted standard is not allowed. The methodology of non-formalized (non-standardized) interview differs only in the general setting of the main topic, problem. The sequence, number of questions, their wording are flexibly varied by the interviewer depending on the specific conditions of each interview. Intermediate options are also possible - semi-formalized interviews.

According to the number of respondents and the purpose of diagnosing, interviews can be divided into individual, group and mass.

Individual diagnostic interviews, as a rule, are free, non-standardized. Their main goal is to study the personal characteristics of a particular person. Interviews of this type are clinical, in-depth, and focused. Clinical interviews are aimed at identifying personality accentuations, searching for stress factors, causes of negative mental states, etc. In-depth interviews - to clarify the events and experiences of the interviewee in the past, located in the depths of his memory. A focused interview focuses the attention of the interviewee on a single life event, a problem that is significant to him. Moreover, focusing can be set both by the diagnostician and by the interviewee himself (in the latter case, we have self-focusing).

This is achieved through a free interview, during which the psychologist-diagnostician, with the help of indirect leading questions, sort of "gropes" pain points in the mind of the respondent. This is especially true for psychoanalytic interviews. The specialist, starting the interview, does not know what episodes, facts of the client's biography were repressed into the subconscious and serve as the cause of his neurotic state. However, it is known that attempts to open such unconscious complexes and bring them to the level of consciousness meet with resistance from the client. These zones are “groped” for long pauses, defaults, vasomotor reactions, etc. .

Group diagnostic interviews are conducted simultaneously with the entire group, in a semi-free form, they provide for a group discussion on the range of issues raised. Individual opinions of group members, when expressed as part of a group, can be significantly distorted due to conformism, group solidarity, under the charm of the group leader (or fear of sanctions from his side for the “wrong” answer). Combination of individual and group interviews in diagnosing problems interpersonal relationships can give very interesting and useful information to the diagnostician.

Mass interviews are designed to diagnose mass socio-psychological phenomena: public opinion, mood, social tension, etc. They are also called demoscopic interviews. E. Noel - the author of the book "Mass Polls" defines this species interview as "an oral standardized questioning of people selected on statistical principles". A mass, demoscopic, interview is “a survey “according to a scheme” pre-programmed to the details, although for the respondents themselves it can be perceived as a rather “live, private and rather relaxed conversation due to anonymity”.

The mass interview is formalized to the maximum extent possible. Standardization concerns not only the order and wording of questions, but also a possible fan of ready-made answers. Share open questions, for which there is no ready-made fan of possible answers, is very small.

A type of standardized interview is a telephone survey. A telephone survey differs from a regular individual interview in that there is no direct in full communication between the interviewer and the respondent. In this regard, certain restrictions are imposed on the telephone interview. In particular, the time spent on it should be limited to 5-10 minutes. As in a quick survey, the questions and the possible fan of answers to them should be short, limited in number. Due to the danger of obtaining non-representative information (in many cities, telephones are mostly owned by the wealthier part of the population), it is advisable to conduct telephone surveys in large cities, where the percentage of telephone penetration is much higher. But here, if you use a spontaneous sample (random mechanical), you can get a discrepancy in its general population. Therefore, with the help of a special detour or calling subscribers, it is advisable to first form a representative group of the respondent network that voluntarily wishes to participate in such telephone interviews. Moreover, their composition should be updated periodically. There are a number of methodological requirements that must be taken into account when conducting telephone interviews. The interested reader can get acquainted with them in the specialized literature.

A formalized interview is very similar in its characteristics to another type of survey - a questionnaire. Questioning is commonly understood as a written survey of respondents using a questionnaire questionnaire. The communication between the diagnosable and the diagnostician here is indirect (through a questionnaire) in nature. As a rule, it is used in the study of group opinions and the opinions of large social groups.

According to the method of conducting the survey is divided into press, postal and distributing. In the case of a press survey, the questionnaire is published in some periodical publication, and readers of this publication are invited to answer questions and send answers to the editorial office. This method is the cheapest, but gives very unreliable information in terms of its representativeness. After all, the answers are sent mainly by the most socially active readers. Therefore, it is unreasonable to extrapolate the results of such a survey to a large general population of people. In addition, the percentage of return in this method is minimal (3-5% or less).

The distribution method in the survey is most preferable, since the return of questionnaires in this case approaches 100%. Sufficient representativeness of the sample can be ensured. In addition, with this method, the questionnaire can explain to the respondents the purpose and objectives of the survey, the meaning of some questions, etc.

A variety of a questionnaire survey carried out by a distributing method can be attributed to the so-called express survey, when the respondents are not given questionnaires of questionnaires made by a typographic or rotaprint method, but blank sheets of paper. The questionnaire of the questionnaire is in the singular with the organizer of the survey, who sequentially reads out each question and a fan of ready-made possible answers to it, and the respondents in their leaflets put only the numbers of these questions and the numbers of the selected answers to them. Conducting a survey in this way allows you to cheaply and quickly obtain information about the opinions of people on a question of interest to the diagnostician.

Both the questionnaire and the questionnaire contain different types of questions, the combination of which results in more reliable information.

Questions can be open or closed. In the first case, the respondent is asked only a question, and he gives the answer in his own words to the extent of his understanding of the essence of the question. In the second case, the respondent is offered a fan of possible answers, from which he must choose one (if the question is dichotomous) or several answers that coincide with his judgment.

Open-ended questions are most often used in free, non-formalized interviews, and closed questions are most often used in formalized interviews and questionnaires. Therefore, the advantages and disadvantages of both types of questions are closely related to the types of interviews we have already considered above. Semi-closed questions, to a certain extent, make it possible to remove these contradictions.

In closed questions of questionnaires or interviews, various scales are most often used, which can be nominal (if the indicators are not characterized by the sign of intensity), ordinal (if the indicators differ by the sign "more" or "less") or metric (when the indicators can be compared as objective numerical, numerical values). Since most indicators in social psychology are of a qualitative nature, the polls mainly use nominal and ordinal scales.

By function, the questions are divided into filtering, control, buffer, contact and meaningful. Filter questions allow you to sift out from the general mass of respondents those who are competent to answer a series of subsequent questions, from those who cannot answer them competently. Control questions are called questions repeated at a certain interval, but in a different wording. They allow you to verify the reliability of the answers. Buffer questions are designed to enhance the imitation of a casual and logical conversation with the interviewee. The content of responses to them is not processed. Contact questions allow you to make contact with the respondent, and buffer questions connect two dissimilar blocks of questions in a questionnaire or interview questionnaire.

According to the way the answers are interpreted, the questions are divided into direct and indirect. The content of direct questions is interpreted directly, literally, while indirect questions are interpreted indirectly.

To a certain extent, impersonal and projective questions can be attributed to the variety of indirect questions. In a projective question, interpretation is also carried out indirectly. For example, surveys in which respondents are asked to continue the phrases they have begun, to respond to the depicted situation in the person of one of its participants, etc., can be classified as projective.

All of these types of questions in various combinations help to increase the reliability of the information collected through the survey.

Certain requirements are imposed on the wording and sequence of questions. In particular, questions should be formulated in a language understandable to the interviewees, taking into account their level of education and culture. That is, the meaning of the question should be clear to the respondents. The wording of the questions should be neutral and not contain value judgments. Otherwise, there is a danger of inciting respondents to the point of view of the author of the questionnaire or interview questionnaire because of the desire to please the author or to present themselves in a more favorable light. Questions, the content of which reveals socially undesirable facts of the behavior of the respondents, destroys their idealized ideas about themselves, it is also desirable to formulate in the form of indirect, projective ones. Sometimes the wording of the questions is rather general and cumbersome. Often this is due to the fact that the authors do not translate target, program questions into batteries of indicator questions, which should be asked to respondents in a questionnaire or interview.

As for the order of questions, there are also some rules here. The first rule is that questions should arouse the interest of respondents, stimulate their desire to answer. Therefore, you should not ask questions that are too difficult to understand at the beginning. They should follow the simple ones. This is where the so-called funnel rule comes into play. Simpler and more interesting questions, as it were, “pull” the interviewee into the “funnel” of questions and answers, and it becomes more and more difficult to get out of it as it deepens. This reduces the failure rate. Based on the same considerations, it is inappropriate to ask questions that touch on intimate topics at the beginning. It is better to save them for the end of the interview, when a more confidential conversation will start between the interviewer and the respondent, the necessary contact will be established.

The questions arranged one after another form a certain structure of the questionnaire or interview. Three major blocks can be distinguished in this structure. The first is the introductory part, which reveals the appeal to the respondent, indicates the purpose of the survey, emphasizes its anonymity, the method of filling out the questionnaire (answering questions). In the interview questionnaire, the introductory part may be absent or very small, since

the interviewer presents the content of this part orally (the text of the introduction can be placed in the instruction to the interviewer). The main part - the largest in volume, contains questions that reveal the problem of the client or customer. The third part of the questionnaire - "objective", or "passport" - contains a number of factual questions about the respondent's belonging to a particular socio-demographic or professional group, which allows, at the stage of subsequent processing and generalization of primary information, to identify causal relationships between the respondents' answers to evaluative questions of the main part and objective parameters of interest to the diagnostician (gender, age, education, marital status, occupation, etc.).

The total time spent on conducting a survey varies quite widely. Demoscopic surveys last an average of 20-30 minutes, while individual interviews (clinical, in-depth, etc.) can last for hours and several sessions. The main thing here is that the respondent does not get tired to such an extent that he no longer understands the questions, is burdened by them, and answers formally. This largely depends on the interest of the respondents in the problem under discussion.

The survey of experts differs from other types of surveys primarily in the level of competence of the respondents in the problem of interest to the practical psychologist, as well as in the procedural aspects associated with the selection of experts and the analysis of the information received from them. The collection of information can be carried out both in the form of interviews and questionnaires, even telephone interviews.

An expert survey is of particular importance as one of the ways to check the validity of the methods used. Expert surveys can provide an irreplaceable service in predicting mass socio-psychological phenomena.

Much attention is paid to the selection of experts. In the methodological literature, attempts are made to standardize this procedure. In particular, it is proposed to carry out selection according to such objective criteria as the level of education, the availability of a scientific degree, the number of published works on the diagnosed problem, the number of references to these works of other researchers, the length of service associated with the diagnosed problem, etc. After that, the experts can be additionally tested for creativity, intelligence, general competence in the range of issues under consideration. The methods of expert surveys themselves may differ from the methods of conventional surveys in a more complex and professional language, provide for more complex combined questions. In the case of a long and mentally demanding expert survey, the work of experts can be paid from the customer's funds.

Some expert survey methods provide for standardization in the processing and analysis of the information received (for example, the Delphi method). In particular, the most extreme values given by experts are not included in mathematical processing, etc.

A specific form of group interviews with experts includes the method of "brainstorming" - a very effective, albeit complicated in terms of the procedure, way of finding new alternative options solutions in problem situations.

Sociometry - a quantitative measurement of relationships, some authors refer to the number of independent methods, others identify with the test.

Sociometric survey is carried out with the help of both questionnaires and interviews. Along with the methods of collecting information, it also contains a standardized procedure for processing information (compiling a sociomatrix for each sociometric criterion, sociograms, calculating all kinds of indices based on the sociomatrix data characterizing the personality, interpersonal relations in the group and the group as a whole), as well as interpreting the information received.

One of the varieties of the survey is the method of goal-group assessment of the personality, with the help of which the socio-psychological position of the individual in the group is determined.