College Student Looking To Survey Truck Drivers For Research, How Do I Send Out The Survey?

Hello, as the subjects implies, I am a college student working for the summer as a research assistant for my university. The professor I am working for is trying to find a correlation (if any) between gas prices and truck driver behavior. My job is to develop a survey and get truck drivers to take it (I also need to figure out how to give incentive for responses). The first issue I am running into is getting in contact with truck drivers in the first place. They will also need to have some amount of experience to draw their answers from. Preferably, the survey will be electronic (such as an email link) so that the respondents can be anonymous but otherwise truck stops are an option for face to face interviews.

Any advice or ideas are much appreciated.

Hello, as the subjects implies, I am a college student working for the summer as a research assistant for my university. The professor I am working for is trying to find a correlation (if any) between gas prices and truck driver behavior. My job is to develop a survey and get truck drivers to take it (I also need to figure out how to give incentive for responses). The first issue I am running into is getting in contact with truck drivers in the first place. They will also need to have some amount of experience to draw their answers from. Preferably, the survey will be electronic (such as an email link) so that the respondents can be anonymous but otherwise truck stops are an option for face to face interviews.

Any advice or ideas are much appreciated.

Sociology or Psychology?

Class 7-8 trucks like the ones most of us drive, run on diesel fuel. I can tell you for a fact the current price of gasoline never (emphasize never) enters my thought process while I am driving.

I think you'll find in research that it's more than just driver habits. Each state has different tax rates, the type of fuel/blend depending on what time of the year and what part of the country all factor in. The biggest influence comes from one area which no driver or company has any control and those are the speculators on Wall Street who will eventually effect prices based on supply and demand and overall expectations in the oil industry worldwide.

Since I don't pay for my fuel I can tell you that diesel prices have very little (if any) effect on my behavior.

I would contact ooida. Owner operator independent drivers association. Most drivers on here are company drivers, fuel and go.

You can build a survey with SurveyMonkey.com or Google Docs. Then post the link.

Company drivers don't buy their own fuel. We don't really care if it's $1.00/gallon or $8.99/gallon.

For owner operators, it's the story your looking for. OOIDA.com (Owner Operator Independent Drivers Association)

Sociology or Psychology?

I go to school for engineering and public policy so the second part would fall under sociology.

Thanks for the input guys, I figured if drivers aren't paying for gas they'd be significantly more concerned with making their deliveries rather than trying to be easy on the gas pedal. But I'll make sure I go ahead and contact ooida and maybe I'll post a survey on here in a few weeks depending on what my boss says.