What is the primary purpose of conducting a survey?

The primary purpose of conducting a survey is to ascertain self-reported attitudes or behaviors. Surveys are designed to gather information directly from individuals about their opinions, feelings, thoughts, or experiences. They often use structured questions to quantify these self-reports, which can then be analyzed to identify trends or correlations within the population studied.

Surveys are particularly valuable because they allow researchers to collect data from a large number of respondents, making it possible to generalize findings to a broader context. This self-reported data can inform a variety of fields, such as psychology, sociology, market research, and public health, where understanding individual perspectives and behaviors is crucial.

In contrast to other options, surveys do not establish causation between variables, as they typically do not involve controlled experimental methods. Similarly, while they can incorporate observational data, the primary mechanism of data collection in surveys is through responses from participants rather than observation alone.