This state-of-the-art volume provides insight into the recent developments in survey research. It covers topics like: survey modes and response effects, bio indicators and paradata, interviewer and survey error, mixed-mode panels, sensitive questions, conducting web surveys and access panels, coping with non-response, and handling missing data. The authors are leading scientists in the field, and discuss the latest methods and challenges with respect to these topics. Each of the book’s eight parts starts with a brief chapter that provides an historical context along with an overview of today’s most critical survey methods. Chapters in the sections focus on research applications in practice and discuss results from field studies. As such, the book will help researchers design surveys according to today’s best practices. The book’s website www.survey-methodology.de provides additional information, statistical analyses, tables and figures. An indispensable reference for practicing researchers and methodologists or any professional who uses surveys in their work, this book also serves as a supplement for graduate or upper level-undergraduate courses on survey methods taught in psychology, sociology, education, economics, and business. Although the book focuses on European findings, all of the research is discussed with reference to the entire survey-methodology area, including the US. As such, the insights in this book will apply to surveys conducted around the world.

Questions as Measures An Overview Designing Questions to Gather Factual Data Questions to Measure Subjective States Some General Rules for Designing Good Survey Instruments Presurvey Evaluation of Questions Assessing the Validity of Survey Questions Question Design and Evaluation Issues in Perspective.

For many household surveys in the United States, responses rates have been steadily declining for at least the past two decades. A similar decline in survey response can be observed in all wealthy countries. Efforts to raise response rates have used such strategies as monetary incentives or repeated attempts to contact sample members and obtain completed interviews, but these strategies increase the costs of surveys. This review addresses the core issues regarding survey nonresponse. It considers why response rates are declining and what that means for the accuracy of survey results. These trends are of particular concern for the social science community, which is heavily invested in obtaining information from household surveys. The evidence to date makes it apparent that current trends in nonresponse, if not arrested, threaten to undermine the potential of household surveys to elicit information that assists in understanding social and economic issues. The trends also threaten to weaken the validity of inferences drawn from estimates based on those surveys. High nonresponse rates create the potential or risk for bias in estimates and affect survey design, data collection, estimation, and analysis. The survey community is painfully aware of these trends and has responded aggressively to these threats. The interview modes employed by surveys in the public and private sectors have proliferated as new technologies and methods have emerged and matured. To the traditional trio of mail, telephone, and face-to-face surveys have been added interactive voice response (IVR), audio computer-assisted self-interviewing (ACASI), web surveys, and a number of hybrid methods. Similarly, a growing research agenda has emerged in the past decade or so focused on seeking solutions to various aspects of the problem of survey nonresponse; the potential solutions that have been considered range from better training and deployment of interviewers to more use of incentives, better use of the information collected in the data collection, and increased use of auxiliary information from other sources in survey design and data collection. Nonresponse in Social Science Surveys: A Research Agenda also documents the increased use of information collected in the survey process in nonresponse adjustment.

Textbook on survey research methods for use in social research - covers data collecting, samples, mail surveys, questionnaires, interviewing, data processing, ethics, errors, etc. References.

Offering a practical, six-step approach to effective survey design, delivery, and analysis, Survey Methods for Medical and Health Professions Education provides a real-world framework for successful research and evaluation using surveys. Focused on medical and other health professional education research, this unique text features quick-reference checklists, high-yield explanations, and case examples throughout, making it both a foundational reference and a go-to resource for all health professions educators and researchers who use surveys. Provides a detailed and practical discussion of the steps in survey methodology, along with just enough theory to inform common decisions. Includes numerous real-world examples, both simple and complex, covering the wide range of problems researchers are likely to face. Addresses issues of survey fatigue and addresses the challenge of how to get "good data." Features "Voice of Experience" boxes—pearls based on authors’ actual experiences. Concludes each chapter with a checklist so readers can quickly ensure they have covered every necessary step of survey design and implementation. Contains a convenient glossary of terms. Offers guidance from expert international contributors in medical and health professions research. Summarizes the most current standards and understanding of survey research so that experienced and novice researchers alike can directly apply content to improve research rigor.

Surveys enjoy great ubiquity among data collection methods in social research: they are flexible in questioning techniques, in the amount of questions asked, in the topics covered, and in the various ways of interactions with respondents. Surveys are also the preferred method by many researchers in the social sciences due to their ability to provide quick profiles and results. Because they are so commonly used and fairly easy to administer, surveys are often thought to be easily thrown together. But designing an effective survey that yields reliable and valid results takes more than merely asking questions and waiting for the answers to arrive. Geared to the non-statistician, the Handbook of Survey Methodology in Social Sciences addresses issues throughout all phases of survey design and implementation. Chapters examine the major survey methods of data collection, providing expert guidelines for asking targeted questions, improving accuracy and quality of responses, while reducing sampling and non-sampling bias. Relying on the Total Survey Error theory, various issues of both sampling and non-sampling sources of error are explored and discussed. By covering all aspects of the topic, the Handbook is suited to readers taking their first steps in survey methodology, as well as to those already involved in survey design and execution, and to those currently in training. Featured in the Handbook: • The Total Survey Error: sampling and non-sampling errors. • Survey sampling techniques. • The art of question phrasing. • Techniques for increasing response rates • A question of ethics: what is allowed in survey research? • Survey design: face-to-face, phone, mail, e-mail, online, computer-assisted.? • Dealing with sensitive issues in surveys. • Demographics of respondents: implications for future survey research. • Dealing with nonresponse, and nonresponse bias The Handbook of Survey Methodology in Social Sciences offers how-to clarity for researchers in the social and behavioral sciences and related disciplines, including sociology, criminology, criminal justice, social psychology, education, public health, political science, management, and many other disciplines relying on survey methodology as one of their main data collection tools.

This valuable book examines the complex psychological processes involved in answering different types of survey questions. Drawing on both classic and modern research from cognitive psychology, social psychology, and survey methodology, the authors examine how survey responses are formulated and they demonstrate how seemingly unimportant features of the survey can affect the answers obtained. The book provides a comprehensive review of the sources of response errors in surveys, and it offers a coherent theory of the relation between the underlying views of the public and the results of public opinion polls. Topics include the comprehension of survey questions, the recall of relevant facts and beliefs, estimation and inferential processes people use to answer survey questions, the sources of the apparent instability of public opinion, the difficulties in getting responses into the required format, and the distortions introduced into surveys by deliberate misreporting.