Population-based survey experiments have become an invaluable tool for social scientists struggling to generalize laboratory-based results, and for survey researchers besieged by uncertainties about ...causality. Thanks to technological advances in recent years, experiments can now be administered to random samples of the population to which a theory applies. Yet until now, there was no self-contained resource for social scientists seeking a concise and accessible overview of this methodology, its strengths and weaknesses, and the unique challenges it poses for implementation and analysis.
Designing Effective Web Surveys is a practical guide to designing web surveys, based on empirical evidence and grounded in scientific research and theory. It is designed to guide survey practitioners ...in the art and science of developing and deploying successful web surveys. The author guides the researcher through the steps involved, from the basic building blocks and suggests ways to increase visual impact and interactivity. Throughout, he considers the importance of layout and design, and attention is also given to the way questions are put together. The book is intended for academic, government, and market researchers who design and conduct web surveys.
The EuroQol Group is an international, cross-disciplinary group set up in 1987 to investigate issues related to the valuation of health. This book presents a series of papers from the early 1990s ...that illustrate many key aspects of the development of EQ-5D including: the descriptive system, self-rated health, valuation issues, health status scaling, modeling and valuation, semantic issues, reliability, and comparison with other instruments. The book provides a detailed insight into the analytical processes involved in the development of the EQ-5D as one of the foremost instruments for the measurement and valuation of health-related quality of life, and will be of particular interest to researchers in this area. It will also appeal to all those involved in outcome measurement - clinical personnel, health policy advisers and administrators, those involved in audit and quality assurance, health economists, and the pharmaceutical industry.
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High response rates have traditionally been considered as one of the main indicators of survey quality. Obtaining high response rates is sometimes difficult and expensive, but clearly plays a ...beneficial role in terms of improving data quality. It is becoming increasingly clear, however, that simply boosting response to achieve a higher response rate will not in itself eradicate nonresponse bias. In this book the authors argue that high response rates should not be seen as a goal in themselves, but rather as part of an overall survey quality strategy based on random probability sampling and aimed at minimising nonresponse bias.
Key features of Improving Survey Response:
A detailed coverage of nonresponse issues, including a unique examination of cross-national survey nonresponse processes and outcomes.
A discussion of the potential causes of nonresponse and practical strategies to combat it.
A detailed examination of the impact of nonresponse and of techniques for adjusting for it once it has occurred.
Examples of best practices and experiments drawn from 25 European countries.
Supplemented by the European Social Survey (ESS) websites, containing materials for the measurement and analysis of nonresponse based on detailed country-level response process datasets.
The book is designed to help survey researchers and those commissioning surveys by explaining how to prioritise the reduction of nonresponse bias rather than focusing on increasing the overall response rate. It shows substantive researchers how nonresponse can impact on substantive outcomes.
Surveys undergird government statistical systems and social scientific research throughout the world. Rates of nonresponse are rising in cross-sectional surveys (those conducted during a fixed period ...of time and not repeated). Although this trend worries those concerned with the validity of survey data, there is no necessary relationship between the rate of nonresponse and the degree of bias. A high rate of nonresponse merely creates the potential for bias, but the degree of bias depends on how factors promoting nonresponse are related to variables of interest. Nonresponse can be reduced by offering financial incentives to respondents and by careful design before entering the field, creating a trade-off between cost and potential bias. When bias is suspected, it can be countered by weighting individual cases by the inverse of their response propensity. Response propensities are typically estimated using a logistic regression equation to predict the dichotomous outcome of survey participation as a function of auxiliary variables. The Multi-level Integrated Database Approach employs multiple databases to collect as much information as possible about the target sample during the initial sampling stage and at all possible levels of aggregation to maximize the accuracy of estimated response propensities.
Household Surveys in Crisis Meyer, Bruce D.; Mok, Wallace K. C.; Sullivan, James X.
The Journal of economic perspectives,
10/2015, Volume:
29, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Household surveys, one of the main innovations in social science research of the last century, are threatened by declining accuracy due to reduced cooperation of respondents. While many indicators of ...survey quality have steadily declined in recent decades, the literature has largely emphasized rising nonresponse rates rather than other potentially more important dimensions to the problem. We divide the problem into rising rates of nonresponse, imputation, and measurement error, documenting the rise in each of these threats to survey quality over the past three decades. A fundamental problem in assessing biases due to these problems in surveys is the lack of a benchmark or measure of truth, leading us to focus on the accuracy of the reporting of government transfers. We provide evidence from aggregate measures of transfer reporting as well as linked microdata. We discuss the relative importance of misreporting of program receipt and conditional amounts of benefits received, as well as some of the conjectured reasons for declining cooperation and for survey errors. We end by discussing ways to reduce the impact of the problem including the increased use of administrative data and the possibilities for combining administrative and survey data.
This four-month study evaluated the virtual delivery of Fresh Conversations (FC). Participants were community-residing Iowans ages 60+ years. They were placed in one of four meeting groups based on ...location and participant preference: Zoom™, Adobe Connect®, group-based Zoom™ meeting, and teleconference. Participants were invited to complete a post-meeting online survey. Data analyses were completed using data from the first survey completed by each participant (n = 115). Descriptive statistics assessed response frequencies for all questions. Chi-Square and Mann–Whitney U tests assessed the differences between groups. Overall, participants were “satisfied/very satisfied” (72.1%), learned something new (85.2%), and intended to make behavior change (79.1%); no differences were detected by the group for satisfaction or reported impacts. Only 24.3% reported technical difficulties; the Adobe Connect® group reported the most difficulties (p = .004). These findings suggest virtual delivery of FC is well-received and perceived to be effective by participants.
The Changing Body Floud, Roderick; Fogel, Robert W.; Harris, Bernard ...
03/2011
eBook
Humans have become much taller and heavier, and experience healthier and longer lives than ever before in human history. However it is only recently that historians, economists, human biologists and ...demographers have linked the changing size, shape and capability of the human body to economic and demographic change. This fascinating and groundbreaking book presents an accessible introduction to the field of anthropometric history, surveying the causes and consequences of changes in health and mortality, diet and the disease environment in Europe and the United States since 1700. It examines how we define and measure health and nutrition as well as key issues such as whether increased longevity contributes to greater productivity or, instead, imposes burdens on society through the higher costs of healthcare and pensions. The result is a major contribution to economic and social history with important implications for today's developing world and the health trends of the future.
This important new book is a comparative study of social mobility based on qualitative interviews with middle-class parents in America and Britain. It addresses the key issue in stratification ...research, namely, the stability of class relations and middle-class reproduction. Drawing on interviewee accounts of how parents mobilised economic, cultural and social resources to help them into professional careers, it then considers how the interviewees, as parents, seek to increase their children's chances of educational success and occupational advancement. Middle-class parents may try to secure their children's social position but it is not an easy or straightforward affair. With the decline of the quality of state education and increased job insecurity in the labour market since the 1970s and 1980s, the reproduction of advantage is more difficult than in the affluent decades of the 1950s and 1960s. The implications for public policy, especially public investment in higher education, are considered.
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