Websurveys and other LT Tools
I'm about efficiency. I like to improve processes to make them more streamlined. Web surveys seem to be a tool that could help the researcher get quickly to what is most important - the data analysis. I knew it was difficult to write a good survey, but was even more surprised to find out how many potential design issues were involved their development. I'm realizing more and more that design of study is more critical that any other aspect of your research - time and energy spent in this phase will pay dividends. By having someone who has already designed a quality layout and response pattern for online surveys, the researcher free themselves up for a more important task; the questions themselves. As we have discussed in statistics, internal validity is key in having a quality study. Therefore it follows, that questions that are unbiased and truly get at the heart of what you want to study are key. I am pretty confident I could use these tools to setup some slick, efficient survey and get me some real data, real quick. The tool I can use efficiently at this stage, just not sure I'll use it correctly or properly.
