Difference between a survey and a poll
Polls and surveys are two ways to obtain information on a certain topic. These both methods are used by researchers to measure opinions and garner feedback. The major difference between a poll and a survey is that, Poll is simple and quick and Survey can be, open-ended and time-taking. Polls has one multiple choice question with two or more choices to answer and can be found everywhere
these
days,
newspaper
site,
entertainment websites, sports website and are often located on the side of a website or under an article with questions such as ‘how do you feel about the website’ or ‘Who will win this competition’.
Difference between a survey and a poll
Surveys are more comprehensive when compared to polls and usually have multiple questions and can be build with open-ended theme. Surveys question number can range from one to many because surveys are majorly used to measure the view of the respondents on a broad topic or to attain their feedback. To garner these opinions surveyors can create questions which can be open-ended, multiple choice, or ask the respondents to rank them (on a scale of 1-10 or Satisfied, Dissatisfied , Happy , Not Happy etc.) Both polls and surveys can be conducted via various media such as telephone, websites, emails or during a face to face interaction. Both polls and survey have their own set of advantages and disadvantages. Poll has the ability to be anonymous, as one may visit a website and provide the response. The website generally do not ask for any personal details as the purpose of this exercise is to generally gauge consensus of wider audience. A survey, can however, ask to give ones information in order to do a detailed analysis of the result. This information can be in the form of name, age, phone number, e-mail address, physical address, etc. This also helps in doing a follow up interview in case of further questions. Surveys, however, are a long tedious process and requires lot of time and effort. Generally people are also hesitant to take a survey as they might not be comfortable giving out their personal information. This creates a problem in gathering information, as less people come forward to release their opinion and hence there is a possibility of result
Difference between a survey and a poll
being biased due to lack of good sample population for survey. Hence survey tends to require more man-power to get quality result and tend to be more expensive than a poll Polls also have their limitation, as they can only provide general opinion to a question; hence here survey has an advantage over polls. Surveys helps in getting more detailed answer and tend to be more comprehensive but often takes long time to process information and release results. However, polls result can be summarised quickly and in a few sentences
Hence in a nutshell, a poll gives the flexibility to elicit response via multiple choice question and participants have only the option to choose from predefined answers. This helps in getting more controlled and guided response from the participants. A survey lets participant provide wider viewpoint on the topic. Participants can comment on the questions and allows surveyor to ask multiple questions across a wider range of question types.