Types of survey research

Survey research allows you to gather critical insights from a target audience. This guide will walk you through the three main types of surveys—exploratory, descriptive, and causal—to help you determine the right approach and application to meet your research goals. 

To help you develop a survey-based research plan, we'll explore:

Surveys are primary research tools that provide data as part of overall research strategies. Survey research is critical to getting the answers you need, yielding valuable primary research data to make informed decisions about everything from product development to marketing campaigns.

Regardless of how you conduct survey research, it should have the following characteristics:

Below we highlight three broad categories or objectives of a survey, based on the purpose or what the research aims to achieve: exploratory, descriptive, and causal. It helps to familiarize yourself with these types before designing your survey research.

Exploratory research is an important part of any marketing or business strategy. Its focus is on the discovery of ideas and insights as opposed to collecting statistically accurate data. That is why exploratory research is best suited as the beginning of your total research plan. It is most commonly used for further defining company issues, areas for potential growth, alternative courses of action, and prioritizing areas that require statistical research.

When it comes to online surveys, the most common example of exploratory research takes place in the form of open-ended questions for qualitative data. Think of exploratory questions as means of expanding your understanding of your survey respondents. While text-based responses may not be statistically measurable, they will give you richer quality information that can lead to the discovery of new initiatives or problems that should be addressed.

Characteristics of exploratory research:

Descriptive research is the most common and conclusive form of survey research due to its quantitative nature. Unlike exploratory research methods, descriptive research  utilizes pre-planned, structured surveys with closed-ended questions. It’s also deductive, meaning that the survey structure and questions are determined beforehand based on existing theories or areas of inquiry. The data gathered is then used to test hypotheses or assumptions.

The goal of descriptive research is to quantify and categorize opinions, attitudes, or beliefs held by a particular population regarding a given subject. For example, a descriptive survey may use multiple choice questions with predefined response options. While not providing the depth of qualitative insights, these standardized questions yield data that can be statistically analyzed and inferred upon. 

Grouping responses into set categories enables you to measure the prevalence of certain opinions or behaviors of your target audience. It also allows for comparison over time to identify shifts in attitudes and trends.

Characteristics of descriptive research:

Causal research is also quantitative, pre-planned, and structured like descriptive research. For this reason, it is also considered conclusive. However, causal research goes beyond observation to determine the cause and effect relationship between variables.

While descriptive research observes and quantifies phenomena, causal research actively manipulates variables through experimentation to test hypotheses about causal effects. For example, a causal survey might compare control and test groups to evaluate the impact of different interventions.

The objectives of causal research are two-fold:

Characteristics of casual research:

These are techniques or approaches used to collect survey data. Let’s look closer at each of these formats to determine which is right for your research.

Online surveys are the most common form of survey used today. This low-cost survey format is the easiest way to reach a group of people—especially larger audiences. A variety of organizations, including educational institutions, businesses, healthcare organizations, marketing agencies, and more use online surveys.

The benefits of using online surveys:

Related: 10 tips to improve your online surveys

Once a very popular method of gathering information, the use of phone surveys has declined with the rise of digital surveys and the fading use of landline phones among most households. 

Phone surveys provide a way to reach a large sample economically compared to in-person methods. However, they do require significant time and staffing to administer.  

Key downsides of phone surveys include the risk of human error, specifically skewed data due to  transcription errors; as well as less candid feedback since respondents speak directly to the interviewer.

Face-to-face interviews can yield rich, detailed insights through direct conversation and observation, but they tend to be prohibitively expensive for large samples. Survey interviewers must be fully trained to obtain high-quality data that takes advantage of this format. For example, they must recognize and note body language cues, ask relevant follow-up questions, and probe for more information when necessary.

In addition, there is also the risk of multiple types of survey bias with in-person interviews—read more about them here.

Depending on the type of information you’re looking for and the types of survey research methods you employ, you’ll find that there are several benefits, including:

Surveys are generally easy to conduct, especially online. If you use SurveyMonkey, you can access hundreds of customizable templates that make it easy to personalize your survey research. Our data dashboard transforms your data into charts and graphs that make data easy to understand and use.

Conducting your survey research online is likely the most cost-effective way to gather data. In-person surveys and interviews require trained staff to gather, calculate, and analyze data. 

With surveys, you can collect data from a large population in a short time, providing even more cost savings. Don’t have a list of participants from your target market? A global survey panel such as SurveyMonkey Audience can help you reach the respondents you need.

A key advantage to survey research methods is that they can  collect both quantitative and qualitative data to provide a complete picture of your target audience. Use a variety of question types, such as multiple choice, Likert scale, dropdowns, ranking, and more to obtain quantitative insights. You can also ask open-ended questions to gain the anecdotal information you need to bring individual perspectives to life.

Related: Qualitative vs. quantitative research: What’s the difference?

Like any type of research, there are some disadvantages to using surveys, including: