What is a survey?

In one sense, the word ‘survey’ means ‘to view comprehensively and in detail’.
In another sense it refers specifically to the act of ‘obtaining data for mapping’.
These aspects of the definition of a survey, of course, derive from the classic versions
of geographical surveys and ordnance surveys which map out the landscape
or the built environment of roads and buildings. The principles, though,
have been used to good effect on mapping out the social world as well as the
physical world and, indeed, surveys have emerged in recent times as one of the
most popular and commonplace approaches to social research. Such social
surveys share with their physical counterparts some crucial characteristics.
• Wide and inclusive coverage. Implicit in the notion of ‘survey’ is the idea
that the research should have a wide coverage – a breadth of view. A survey,
in principle, should take a panoramic view and ‘take it all in’.
• At a specific point in time. The purpose of mapping surveys is generally to
‘bring things up to date’, and so it is with the notion of social surveys.
Surveys usually relate to the present state of affairs and involve an attempt
to provide a snapshot of how things are at the specific time at which the
data are collected. Though there might be occasions when researchers will
wish to do a retrospective study to show how things used to be, these
remain more an exception than the rule.Empirical research. In the sense that ‘to survey’ carries with it the meaning
‘to look’, survey work inevitably brings with it the idea of empirical research.
It involves the idea of getting out of the chair, going out of the office and
purposefully seeking the necessary information ‘out there’. The researcher
who adopts a survey approach tends to buy in to a tradition of research
which emphasizes the quest for details of tangible things – things that can
be measured and recorded.

These three characteristics of the survey approach involve no mention of
specific research methods. It is important to recognize this point. The survey
approach is a research strategy, not a method. Researchers who adopt the
strategy are able to use a whole range of methods within the strategy: questionnaires,
interviews, documents and observation. What is distinctive about
the survey approach is its combination of a commitment to a breadth of
study, a focus on the snapshot at a given point in time and a dependence
on empirical data. That is not to deny that there are certain methods which
are popularly associated with the use of surveys, nor that there are certain
methods which sit more comfortably with the use of the strategy than
others. This is true for each of the main research strategies outlined in the
book. However, in essence, surveys are about a particular approach – not the
methods – an approach in which there is empirical research pertaining to a
given point in time which aims to incorporate as wide and as inclusive data as
possible.