100 Questions (and Answers) About Survey Research

Erin Ruel

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781506348827
• eBook ISBN: 9781506348834
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Research & Methodology
• Index: Social Sciences

Erin Ruel?s 100 Questions (and Answers) About Survey Research covers the entire survey research process, starting with developing research questions and ending with the analysis and write-up. It includes the traditional survey topics of design, sampling, question writing, and validity; includes a chapter on research ethics; covers the important topics of preparing, cleaning, and analyzing data; and ends with a section on how to write up survey results for a variety of purposes. Useful as a supplementary text in the classroom or as a reference guide for anyone starting a new survey project, the guidance is presented in a FAQ style to allow readers to jump around the book, so as to accommodate the nonlinear and iterative nature of research.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Acknowledgements
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Part 1 Understanding What Surveys Are and How They Are Used
• Question 1 What Is a Survey?
• Question 2 How Are Surveys Used?
• Question 3 What Are the Benefits of Doing a Survey?
• Question 4 What Is the Survey Research Process From Beginning to End?
• Question 5 How Are Good Empirical Research Questions Developed?
• Question 6 What Are the Various Types of Survey Design?
• Question 7 How Do We Choose the Right Survey Design?
• Part 2 Addressing Ethical Concerns in Survey Research
• Question 8 What Are the Main Ethical Concerns of Research?
• Question 9 If Surveys Are Just About Asking People Questions, Why Are Ethical Considerations Important?
• Question 10 Who Ensures That Research Is Ethical?
• Question 11 How Do IRBs Monitor Research Ethics?
• Question 12 What Is the Process of Submitting a Survey Study to the IRB?
• Question 13 What Is Informed Consent?
• Question 14 What Are Confidentiality and Anonymity, and How Are They Maintained?
• Question 15 What Are the Ethical Concerns for Collecting and Analyzing Data?
• Part 3 Selecting A Sample
• Question 16 Who Is Asked to Take the Survey?
• Question 17 What Is a Sample, and What Is Sampling?
• Question 18 What Is a Sampling Frame?
• Question 19 How Do We Know if the Sample Size Is Large Enough?
• Question 20 How Does Probability Work?
• Question 21 What Is Sampling Theory?
• Question 22 What Is the Central Limit Theorem?
• Question 23 What Is Random Sampling Error?
• Question 24 What Are the Types of Probability Samples?
• Question 25 How Is a Simple Random Sample Collected?
• Question 26 What Is Stratified Random Sampling?
• Question 27 How Is a Proportionate Stratified Probability Sample Collected?
• Question 28 How Is a Disproportionate Stratified Probability Sample Collected?
• Question 29 How Do We Make Disproportionate Stratified Samples Representative of the Population?
• Question 30 How Is a Cluster Sample Collected?
• Question 31 How Do We Select a Sample if the Population Is Not Easy to Find?
• Question 32 What Is a Response Rate?
• Part 4 Writing Good Survey Questions
• Question 33 What Is Involved in Writing Good Survey Questions?
• Question 34 How Do We Connect a Theoretical Concept to a Survey Question?
• Question 35 How Do We Write Survey Questions for Complex Theoretical Concepts?
• Question 36 Do We Need to Create New Questions, or Can We Use Existing Questions?
• Question 37 What Are the Basic Rules to Writing Good Survey Questions?
• Question 38 Are There More Advanced Rules to Writing Survey Questions?
• Question 39 What Are the Best Response Options to Use With Survey Questions?
• Question 40 What Is the Measurement Level of a Survey Question, and Why Is That Important?
• Question 41 When Are Open-Ended Questions Used in Survey Research?
• Question 42 How Do We Order the Survey Questions?
• Part 5 Establishing the Reliability and Validity of Survey Questions
• Question 43 How Do We Ensure Our Survey Questions Measure What They Are Supposed To?
• Question 44 How Is Content Validity Established?
• Question 45 What Is Criterion Validity?
• Question 46 What Is Construct Validity?
• Question 47 What Is Measurement Reliability, and How Is It Established?
• Question 48 What Is Measurement Error?
• Question 49 How Can Measurement Error Be Minimized?
• Question 50 How Can Pretesting and Pilot Testing Improve Reliability and Validity?
• Part 6 Conducting the Survey
• Question 51 Once the Survey Is Designed, How Is the Survey Conducted?
• Question 52 How Often Can We Contact the Sample to Get Them to Participate?
• Question 53 How Are the Potential Members of the Sample Contacted?
• Question 54 How Are the Sample Members Persuaded to Participate?
• Question 55 What Should Be Included in a Cover Letter?
• Question 56 What Other Strategies Can Increase Survey Participation?
• Question 57 How Do We Keep Track of Who Has and Has Not Participated?
• Question 58 How Do We Conduct a Longitudinal Study?
• Question 59 What Other Survey Administration Issues May Arise?
• Question 60 How Do We Take Care of Survey Participants?
• Part 7 Entering and Cleaning the Data
• Question 61 Do We Need to Plan Ahead for Data Entry, Cleaning, and Analysis?
• Question 62 My Data Is Collected. Now What Do I Do?
• Question 63 How Do We Do Data Entry?
• Question 64 What Issues Might Arise With Data Entry?
• Question 65 What Types of Survey Questions Are Difficult to Enter Into the Database?
• Question 66 What Is a Codebook, and Why Is It Important?
• Question 67 What Other Sorts of Documentation Are Needed, and Why?
• Question 68 What Is Data Cleaning?
• Question 69 How Are “Other Specify” Responses Coded?
• Question 70 How Are Open-Ended Questions Coded?
• Part 8 Exploring the Data With Univariate Statistical Analysis
• Question 71 What Are the Goals of Data Analysis?
• Question 72 What Are Variables?
• Question 73 What Are Descriptive Statistics?
• Question 74 How Do We Estimate Central Tendency and Variation in Categorical and Ordinal Variables?
• Question 75 How Do We Examine Central Tendency in Continuous Variables?
• Question 76 How Do We Examine Variation in Continuous Variables When Using the Median?
• Question 77 How Do We Examine Variation in Continuous Variables When Using the Mean?
• Question 78 What Are Inferential Statistics?
• Question 79 How Do We Infer the Population Parameter?
• Question 80 What Is Significance Testing?
• Part 9 Assessing Associations With Bivariate Statistical Tests and Regression
• Question 81 What Is Meant by Association Between Variables?
• Question 82 How Do We Assess an Association Between Two Continuous Variables?
• Question 83 How Do We Determine if a Correlation Between Two Continuous Variables Is Statistically Significant?
• Question 84 How Do We Assess Association Between a Categorical and a Continuous Variable?
• Question 85 How Do We Assess Association Between Two Categorical Variables?
• Question 86 How Do We Display and Report These Bivariate Statistics?
• Question 87 What Is Linear Regression, and What Are Its Benefits?
• Question 88 What Is OLS Regression With a Continuous Independent Variable?
• Question 89 How Do We Know if the Regression Coefficients Are Statistically Significant?
• Question 90 How Do We Interpret OLS Regression With a Categorical Independent Variable?
• Question 91 How Do We Interpret Linear Regression With More Than One Predictor Variable?
• Question 92 How Do We Display and Report These Regression Statistics?
• Part 10 Writing Up the Analyses in Report Form
• Question 93 Who Is My Audience, and Why Does It Matter?
• Question 94 What Is a Good Report Outline?
• Question 95 How Much of the Methodology Needs to Be Included in the Report?
• Question 96 What Are the Most Important Parts of the Analyses to Include in the Report?
• Question 97 How Do We Report on the Sample of Respondents?
• Question 98 How Many Charts and Tables Should We Include in the Report?
• Question 99 How Do We Describe Charts and Tables in the Report?
• Question 100 What Is an Executive Summary, and Why Is It Important?
• References and Resources
• Index