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 of 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 for the Social Sciences addresses issues throughout all phases of survey design and implementation. Chapters examine the major survey methods of data collection, and provide expert guidelines for asking targeted questions, and for 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

Autorentext

Lior Gideon, Ph.D., is a Full time Professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, New York. Is a devout methodologist, and have over 15 years of international experience in teaching methodology courses and training future cohorts of researchers in the field of criminology and criminal justice research. He also specializes in corrections-based program evaluation and focuses his research on rehabilitation, reentry, and reintegration issues and in particular by examining offenders' perceptions of their needs. To that extent, Dr. Gideon developed many survey based measurement to examine level of punitiveness, attitudes supportive of rehabilitation, and recently measures of social support. His research interests also involve international and comparative corrections-related public opinion surveys and their affect on policy. To that extent, Dr. Gideon published several manuscripts on these topics, including two previously published books on offenders needs in the reintegration process: Substance Abusing Inmates: Experiences of Recovering Drug Addicts on Their Way Back Home (2010, Springer), and Rethinking Corrections: Rehabilitation, Reentry, and Reintegration (with Hung-En Sung, 2011, Sage). Aside from the above, Dr. Gideon has published a methodology book titled Theories of Research Methodology: readings in methods, which is now available in its second addition. His other works were recently published in The Prison Journal, the International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, and the Asian Journal of Criminology. Dr. Gideon earned his PhD from the Faculty of Law, Institute of Criminology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Maryland's Bureau of Governmental Research.

Inhalt
AcknowledgmentIntroductionClassification of surveysSurvey Ethics: What are we Allowed to do in Survey ResearchThe Salient Bias in Survey Research: Total Survey Error (TSE)Common Survey Sampling TechniquesFrames, Framing effects, and Survey ResponseThe Art of Question PhrasingInterviewingUnit nonresponse due to refusalControling for response error, and quality of responseWhy do people agree to participate in surveysRespondents Coopertation: Demographic profile of survey respondents and its implications Effects of incentives in surveysDesigning the face to face surveyRepeated Cross-sectional surveys using FTFCost and error in fixed and mobiile phone surveysmail Surveys in social researchE-mail SurveysIncreasing response rate in web-based/ internet surveysHow to build your own online survey panelDoes paying more mean getting better product: Comparison of Surey Modes of AdministrationSensitive issues in surveys: Reducing refusals while increasing reliability and quality of responseResearching difficult populations: Interviewing techniques and methodological issues in FTFWhat survey modes are most effective in eliciting self-reports of criminal or delinquent behaviorIssues in survey desing: using Survey of victimization and fear of crime as examples What would you do? Conducting web-based factorial vignette surveysComparability of survey measurmentsEmployee Surveys as Catalysts for Change: Turning data into action