Population polls have become such a familiar part of modern life that almost all sociological research is often reduced to them. In reality, however, the sociological survey, although the most popular, is by no means the only method of obtaining primary sociological information. At the same time, not every survey can be considered a sociological study. This requires compliance with a number of conditions and technical procedures.
Sociological polls are often called public opinion polls precisely because their main task is to find out what people think about this or that phenomenon. Depending on the technology, polls are divided into direct and indirect. An example of direct questioning is an interview, when there is a direct dialogue between the interviewer and the respondent. In this case, it does not matter at all whether this dialogue takes place in person or by phone. The very contact of two people is important, in the process of which information is transmitted.
A type of mediated poll is questioning, which is also an extremely common method of collecting sociological data. Questionnaires can be handed over to the respondents personally, sent by mail, published in magazines or offered in the form of interactive forms on Internet sites. The respondent fills out the questionnaire on his own and returns it to the researchers. At the same time, the questionnaire involves a number of questions with already predetermined possible answers. Usually these are the traditional "yes", "no", "I find it difficult to answer."
In more serious studies, the list of possible answers can be much wider. This type of answers in sociology is called "closed" because they do not allow for improvisation on the part of the respondent. In some cases, the list of closed answers is supplemented with an empty line for the personal opinion of the respondent, if it differs significantly from the proposed options. This type of response is called "open".
Any sociological survey presupposes a preliminary development of a research program, which sets the goals and objectives of this research, describes the methods used and formulates a preliminary working hypothesis, which the survey data must confirm or refute. Without such a theoretical part, no survey can be considered a truly objective sociological study, since a scientifically developed program and a carefully calculated sample make it possible to avoid many errors in the collection and processing of primary information.
