ABSTRACT
All social science techniques for collecting data constitute sophisticated forms of seeing, hearing, and reading. The survey is perhaps, next to reading, the most popular yet least economical of social science field methods. Its popularity stems from several factors. All the factors have contributed to the survey's unparalleled prominence in the methodology literature of sociology and political science. Broadly speaking there are two kinds of surveys—or, at least, there are two kinds of information that can be gathered in a survey. Some surveys are demographic, others are attitudinal, and, inevitably, some are both. The central difference between the survey and the elite interview is the purpose of each interview and the technique employed. Elite interviews, then, involve a specific group of people, require open-ended and flexible inquiry, and are likely to involve both informational and perceptual components. Elite interviews have a number of obvious advantages over other research methods.
