Question

Some time ago the swine flu bug swept across the U.S. Suppose now that a new flu bug (the “feline” flu) is threatening the health of U.S. residents. Assume that you work for the Harvard School of Public Health, and that you need to quickly determine how the American public is responding to the current feline flu issue. The objective is to find out how people’s behavior might have recently changed because of their concerns about contracting the flu. For example, it is well established that such simple behaviors as covering one’s coughing (with a forearm), keeping a “social distance” of 3 to 6 feet from others, and washing one’s hands frequently (either with soap and hot water or with hand sanitizers) can dramatically reduce the transmittance of the disease. Your subordinates have come up with two possible research plans to address your goal:

(A)   The first is a short pencil-and-paper questionnaire to be administered in a parking lot intercept survey (e.g., outside of supermarkets and ATM machines).

(B)    The second is a series of quick focus groups conducted using office workers, college students and younger pupils at locations nearby workplaces and schools.

Your co-workers have been unable to decide which of the two approaches to use (only one can be undertaken). They have turned to you make a decision. Which of the two approaches do you recommend? Assume the cost of using either approach is not relevant to your decision. Begin your answer with either A or B and briefly defend your choice. roughly 200 words.

Answer 1

The first is a short pencil-and-paper questionnaire to be administered in a parking lot intercept survey

My suggestion will be to use the conventional paper based questionnaire because they have been successfully utilized for a long time in different surveys and is a preferred method of surveying different group of people.

One of the major advantages with this type of survey is that the response rate for this type of survey is much higher and anonymous. Due to this, people tend to give an honest feedback.

Apart from this, the target groups get the printed questionnaires which have same settings and same kinds of questions for all the participants. The environment given to the participants is also relatively same, ensuring that everyone gets same questionnaire with same settings and same questions with relatively similar environment.

These types of surveys are resource intensive and give ample information which the surveyors are looking for research. Most of the information is honest because of the anonymity factor, thus becoming reliable to the survey targets and giving a wealth of helpful information to the surveyors