Survey Research Laboratory, Florida State University
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About the Survey Research Lab




    

The Survey Research Laboratory (SRL) is a unit within the College of Social Sciences at Florida State University.  The SRL is organized to provide services to University researchers, public agencies, and private organizations.  Services include questionnaire design, sample design, data collection, data entry and coding, and data analysis.

Since its inception in 1978, the SRL has conducted well over 200 surveys.  The facility and its staff are dedicated dedicated to promoting teaching, research, and public service goals throughout the College, University, and community at large.

The SRL is staffed with a Research Scientist Director, an Operations Manager, Programmers, and a staff of data analysts.  In addition, the SRL employs approximately 50-100 interviewers in both full and part-time schedules.  Interviews are conducted on 25 Computer-Assisted Telephone Interview (CATI) call stations giving the laboratory the capacity to manage multiple simultaneous surveys.  Calls are made during peak day and night hours seven days a week.  An appointment system is available using a secure 800 number.  In addition, Internet, FAX, and mailed surveys may be employed jointly with a phone survey or as an independent survey.

In conducting surveys, the SRL and its staff adhere to the Code of Professional Ethics and Practices of the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR).  The professionals associated with a client's project are also dedicated to adapting the sophisticated research techniques used in academic research for use in answering questions facing state, regional, and local governments.  Competitive fees are established to cover costs of the services.

The SRL also offers a number of auxiliary services: conducting training workshops, designing data entry and analysis schemes, providing data entry services, and conducting focus and discussion groups.  Training workshops cover various survey research topics such as sample design, frame development, instrumentation, survey management, data entry, mode comparisons, and similar topics.  These workshops are held at F.S.U. and are also offered at the client's workplace.

The SRL team serves as a support system for faculty and graduate student research.  Assistance with project methodology and analysis design can be provided for proposal development and the SRL team can serve as collaborators on funded research.