Article Review: Survey Research
A 1999 article by James L. Pirkle and John T. Bernert entitled"Evaluation of Four Maternal Smoking Questions" used a survey method forresearch. The purpose of this paper is to examine this survey instrumentwith regards to its validity and reliability, as well as itsappropriateness for the task at hand. The data collection method theauthors used and the levels of data measurement for variables will also bediscussed in order to fully understand the research that was done andwhether it was completed in such a way as to be statistically significant Analysis of the survey instrument would indicate that it is valid andreliable. There is always some question as to reliability in any givensurvey instrument, simply because there is no way to guarantee that thepeople answering the questions are telling the truth. Because of this, thefinal data could be affected, but the likelihood is that the lies told onthe 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 themare important when drawing conclusions as to the number of pregnant womenwho smoke. The questions include whether the preg
The most importantthing to note here is that the women that were surveyed weren't asked onlyif they smoked (yes/no) but were asked other specific questions about howmuch they smoked and if that changed when they found out that they werepregnant. The goal was to take a random, realistic sample, and it appears that thiswas basically done correctly, although the study does not indicate whetherthe population was studied first in an effort to obtain a realistic samplebased on both age and education level. There was also no way to determine the responserate, as the amount of women that were asked to participate was notdocumented (Pirkle & Bernert, 1999). There is really no other realistic way forindividuals to obtain information such as whether pregnant women smoke. Surveys are one of the easiest and most common ways of collectinginformation for research purposes, and it comes as no surprise that themethod was used here. The sample of women thatwere asked to complete the survey seemed to be very appropriate, since theyrepresented the 'average' pregnant woman. They put their own health at risk, of course, but they also put theirunborn babies at risk, and that is a concern of society. In other words, they were allolder than their teens, and had at least a high school education. Results of the survey would indicate thatmost women who did not stop smoking during pregnancy did not significantlychange their smoking behavior as their baby's delivery date grew closer. These were important for adetermination of whether smoking cessation programs and advice about thedangers of smoking during pregnancy were having any effect on the women astheir pregnancies moved along. The main argument to be made when studying the research and themethods used to acquire the information that was used in it is that thesample was not very big, with only 616 women answering question 1 and 555answering question 2. There were several levels of data measurement. Other studies and surveys have agreed with the data and informationcollected here. The way the data was collected was appropriate for the research. In addition to these measurements, several sub-sets were usedwith smaller groups of the same women.
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Acceptance Essays
