44 Understanding the Difference between a Survey and a Questionnaire

Before we move on to look at the strengths and weaknesses of survey research, we will take a step back to make sure you understand the difference between the concepts surveys and questionnaires. While it is true that both surveys and questionnaires use a series of questions to gather information, what distinguishes a questionnaire from a survey is the purpose of and how the data is treated after it is collected.  For example:

• A questionnaire is a set of written questions used for collecting information for the benefit of one single individual (i.e. bank loan application, medical patient history form, job application);
• A survey is a process of gathering information for statistical analysis to the benefit of a group of individuals (a research method);
• A questionnaire does not aggregate data for statistical analysis after the data is collected, whereas survey responses are aggregated to draw conclusions.

Think of it this way, a questionnaire is the set of questions that are used to gather the information, whereas a survey is a process of collecting and analyzing data. If the collected data will not be aggregated and is solely to the benefit the respondent, then that is a questionnaire. If the data being collected with be aggregated and used for analytical purposes, that is a survey (McKay, 2015).  Sometimes questionnaire data is aggregated and it then becomes a survey, and sometimes without someone’s knowledge. For example, the bank where you filled in a loan application aggregates the data from all loan applications in the year 2017 and presents the information in aggregated form at its 2018 annual general meeting to shareholders. The bank has taken questionnaire data and aggregated it into survey data.