The significantly updated third edition of this short, practical book prepares students to write a questionnaire, generate a sample, conduct their own survey research, analyse data, and write up the results, while learning to read and interpret excerpts from published research. It combines statistics and survey research methods in a single book.

Designing and Doing Survey Research is an introduction to the processes and methods of planning and conducting survey research in the real world. Taking a mixed method approach throughout, the book provides step-by-step guidance on: • Designing your research • Ethical issues • Developing your survey questions • Sampling • Budgeting, scheduling and managing your time • Administering your survey • Preparing for data analysis With a focus on the impact of new technologies, this book provides a cutting-edge look at how survey research is conducted today as well as the challenges survey researchers face. Packed full of international examples from various social science disciplines, the book is ideal for students and researchers new to survey research.

Vera Toepoel’s practical, how-to guide to doing surveys online takes you through the entire process of using surveys, from systematically recruiting respondents, to designing the internet survey, to processing the survey data and writing it up. This book helps students and researchers in identifying possible strategies to make the best use of online surveys, providing pro’s and con’s, and do’s and don’ts for each strategy. It also explores the latest opportunities and developments that have arisen in the field of online surveys, including using social networks, and provides expert guidance and examples of best practice throughout. Suitable for those starting a research project or conducting a survey in a professional capacity, this book is the ideal go-to reference for anyone using internet surveys, be it a beginner or a more experienced survey researcher.

This book addresses the needs of researchers who want to conduct surveys online. Issues discussed include sampling from online populations, developing online and mobile questionnaires, and administering electronic surveys, are unique to digital surveys. Others, like creating reliable and valid survey questions, data analysis strategies, and writing the survey report, are common to all survey environments. This single resource captures the particulars of conducting digital surveys from start to finish

In this first book of the series Survey Methods in Educational Research, we have brought together leading authors and scholars in the field to discuss key introductory concepts in the creation, implementation, evaluation and dissemination of survey instruments and their resultant findings. While there are other textbooks that might introduce these concepts adequately well, the authors here have focused on the pragmatic issues that inevitably arise in the development and administration process of survey instruments. Drawing from their rich experiences, the authors present these potential speed bumps or road blocks a survey researcher in education or the social sciences might encounter. Referencing their own work and practice, the authors provide valuable suggestions for dealing with these issues “your advisor never told you about.” And all of the recommendations are aligned with standard protocols and current research on best practices in the field of research methodology. This book is broken into four broad units on creating survey items and instruments, administering surveys, analyzing the data from surveys, and stories of successful administrations modeling the entire research cycle. Each chapter focuses on a different concept in the survey research process, and the authors share their approaches to addressing the issues. These topics include survey item construction, scale development, cognitive interviewing, measuring change with self-report data, translation issues with surveys administered in multiple languages, working with school and program administrators when implementing surveys, a review of current software used in survey research, the use of weights, response styles, assessing validity of results, and effectively communicating your results and findings … and much more. The intended audience of the volume will be practitioners, administrators, teachers as researchers, graduate students, social science and education researchers not experienced in survey research, and students learning program evaluation. In brief, if you are considering doing survey research, this book is meant for you.

This book focuses on small-scale quantitative surveys studying the relationships between variables. After showing the central place of the quantitative survey in social science research methodology, it then takes a simple model of the survey, describes its elements and gives a set of steps and guidelines for implementing each element.

To the uninformed, surveys appear to be an easy type of research to design and conduct, but when students and professionals delve deeper, they encounter the vast complexities that the range and practice of survey methods present. To complicate matters, technology has rapidly affected the way surveys can be conducted; today, surveys are conducted via cell phone, the Internet, email, interactive voice response, and other technology-based modes. Thus, students, researchers, and professionals need both a comprehensive understanding of these complexities and a revised set of tools to meet the challenges. In conjunction with top survey researchers around the world and with Nielsen Media Research serving as the corporate sponsor, the Encyclopedia of Survey Research Methods presents state-of-the-art information and methodological examples from the field of survey research. Although there are other "how-to" guides and references texts on survey research, none is as comprehensive as this Encyclopedia, and none presents the material in such a focused and approachable manner. With more than 600 entries, this resource uses a Total Survey Error perspective that considers all aspects of possible survey error from a cost-benefit standpoint. Key Features Covers all major facets of survey research methodology, from selecting the sample design and the sampling frame, designing and pretesting the questionnaire, data collection, and data coding, to the thorny issues surrounding diminishing response rates, confidentiality, privacy, informed consent and other ethical issues, data weighting, and data analyses Presents a Reader′s Guide to organize entries around themes or specific topics and easily guide users to areas of interest Offers cross-referenced terms, a brief listing of Further Readings, and stable Web site URLs following most entries The Encyclopedia of Survey Research Methods is specifically written to appeal to beginning, intermediate, and advanced students, practitioners, researchers, consultants, and consumers of survey-based information.