CloseUp

Survey Says

Survey says...?

If you are a gameshow fan, you already recognize this phrase from the legendary Family Feud. On the show, the question answers an earlier, generally benign question. Name a yellow fruit. Survey says...? Banana! Family Feud survey topics usually didn't broach tough social issues like those housed at IssueLab do, but a lot of nonprofit research is trying to answer the same important question that those feuding families puzzled over ... regardless of what we think might be fact, what, exactly, does the survey say?

Instead of looking at a specific topic in this month's CloseUp, we've decided instead to focus on a specific methodological tool, surveys. Surveys are incredibly versatile, and this CloseUp confirms it. They can ask one question or twenty. They can cover a small town or giant metropolis. They can target general or specific populations. In this way they reflect the structure of the nonprofit community itself. Large or small, national or local, nonprofits need to be able to take the pulse of the people they help. By analyzing the experiences, actions, and opinions of a group of individuals, surveys are able to gauge the nuances of an issue that number-driven or one-on-one interview work can't always identify.

In this month's CloseUp, some pieces are entirely about a single survey, and some just use the survey as one tool in their research toolbox. Also included in the list are a few pieces that do not actually report the findings of a survey, but instead discuss the use of surveys themselves.

We encourage you to take a closer look at research in the collection which uses surveys, including:

Sweatshops in Chicago: A Survey of Working Conditions in Low-income and Immigrant Communities

The Principal's Perspective: School Safety, Bullying and Harassment - A Survey of Public School Principals

Putting Children First: Ending Family Homelessness In Illinois: A Statewide Survey on Family Homelessness

Unlocking Options for Women: A Survey of Women in Cook County Jail

Discipline and Development: A Meta-Analysis of Public Perceptions of Parents, Parenting, Child Development and Child Abuse

Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation/Harvard Survey of African-American Men

A Global Survey of Community Reinvestment Laws: The Obligation of the Private Sector to Serve the Underserved in Several Countries

The Legal Needs of Local Media Reform Organizations: Report of a National Survey

A Representative Survey of M.S. Patients on Attitudes toward the Benefits and Risks of Drug Therapy

Saving Our Middle Class: A Survey of New York's Leaders By the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy

Summary Article: Use and Users of Digital Resources: A survey explored scholar's attitudes about educational technology environments in the humanities

Survey of Community College Faculty about OER Attitudes and Behaviors

Using Survey Research to Evaluate Communications Campaigns

Wrongdoing Officers and Directors of Charities: A Survey of Press Reports 1995-2002