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S
URVEY
G
UIDE
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T
ERMINOLOGY
Instrument: The survey questionnaire or booklet.
Institutional Review Board (IRB): Campus governance bodies responsible for
ensuring the protection of human subjects participating in research studies,
including surveys.
Mode: The combination of how sample members/participants are contacted,
questions are administered, and responses are recorded.
Preamble: An introductory statement that provides definitions and instructions
for completing a section or question in the survey.
Reference period: The time frame the respondent is being asked to consider
when answering a question (e.g., August 1 through August 15, 2009).
Reliability: The extent to which repeatedly measuring the same property
produces the same result.
Respondent: An individual providing answers to survey questions.
Response dimension: The scale or descriptor that a survey question asks the
respondent to use to describe their observations, actions, attitude, evaluation or
judgment about an event or behavior.
Response rate: The number of completed surveys divided by the number of
eligible potential respondents contacted.
Sample: A list of people drawn from the group from which information is
needed.
Self-administered questionnaire: A paper or web-based survey that collects
data without the use of a telephone or in-person interviewer.
Target population: The group of people whose activities, beliefs or attitudes
are being studied.
Validity: The extent to which a survey question accurately measures the
property it is supposed to measure.