A 1999 article by James L. Pirkle and John T. Bernert entitled
             "Evaluation of Four Maternal Smoking Questions" used a survey method for
             research. The purpose of this paper is to examine this survey instrument
             with regards to its validity and reliability, as well as its
             appropriateness for the task at hand. The data collection method the
             authors used and the levels of data measurement for variables will also be
             discussed in order to fully understand the research that was done and
             whether it was completed in such a way as to be statistically significant
             Analysis of the survey instrument would indicate that it is valid and
             reliable. There is always some question as to reliability in any given
             survey instrument, simply because there is no way to guarantee that the
             people answering the questions are telling the truth. Because of this, the
             final data could be affected, but the likelihood is that the lies told on
             the survey, if any, are of a small enough number not to be statistically
             As for the validity, the survey asks four questions, and all of them
             are important when drawing conclusions as to the number of pregnant women
             who smoke. The questions include whether the pregnant survey participant
             smokes and how many cigarettes per day, as well as how much she has smoked
             for each trimester of her pregnancy. The other two questions relate to
             whether the participant smoked before becoming pregnant and whether they
             stopped or cut down when they found out about the pregnancy, and how many
             cigarettes they smoked (on average) during each specific month of pregnancy
             (Pirkle & Bernert, 1999). Questions 2 and 4 seem to be almost identical in
             scope, but nevertheless are different enough as to be important.
             After the surveys were completed, researchers then evaluated the
             results to see if smoking behavior went down when women found out that they
             ...