Servey methods in social investigation

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION ix

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION xi

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xv

GUIDE FOR THE READER xvii

 

1 THE NATURE OF SOCIAL SURVEYS, AND SOME EXAMPLES

1.1 Introduction 1

1.2 Historical background 6

1.3 The classical poverty surveys 7

1.4 Regional planning surveys 11

1.5 The Government Social Survey—now part of the

Office of Population Censuses and Surveys 13

1.6 Market, audience and opinion research 15

1.7 Some other surveys 20

 

2 THE PLANNING OF SOCIAL SURVEYS

2.1 Preliminary study 41

2.2 The main planning problems 43

2.3 Pre-tests and pilot surveys 47

 

3 THE COVERAGE OF SURVEYS

3.1 Definition of the population 53

3.2 Censuses and sample surveys 54

3.3 The idea and the advantages of sampling 56

3.4 The use of sampling in Great Britain 58

 

4 BASIC IDEAS OF SAMPLING

4.1 Introduction 61

4.2 Estimation and testing of hypotheses 62

4.3 Accuracy, bias and precision 63

4.4 Sampling distributions and standard errors 69

4.5 Significance tests 74

4.6 Summary of simplifications 76

 

5 TYPES OF SAMPLE DESIGN

5.1 Introduction 79

5.2 Random sampling 80

5.3 Stratification 85

5.4 Cluster and multi-stage sampling 100

5.5 Sampling with varying probabilities 111

5.6 Concluding remarks 116

 

6 FURTHER TYPES OF SAMPLE DESIGN

6.1 Area sampling 118

6.2 Multi-phase sampling 121

6.3 Replicated sampling 124

6.4 Quota sampling 127

6.5 Panel and longitudinal studies 137

6.6 Master samples 143

 

7 OTHER ASPECTS OF SAMPLING

7.1 Sample size 146

7.2 Random numbers 152

7.3 Sampling frames 154

7.4 Non-response 166

 

8 AN EXAMPLE OF A NATIONAL RANDOM SAMPLE DESIGN 188

 

9 EXPERIMENTS AND INVESTIGATIONS

9.1 Causality 211

9.2 Validity of experiments 214

9.3 Controlling for the effects of extraneous variables 220

9.4 Other designs 224

9.5 Examples of investigations 226

9.6 Factorial designs 230

9.7 Sample designs for experiments and investigations 233

 

10 METHODS OF COLLECTING THE INFORMATION I—DOCUMENTS AND OBSERVATION

10.1 Introduction 238

10.2 The use of documentary sources 240

10.3 Observation 244

 

11 METHODS OF COLLECTING THE INFORMATION II—MAIL QUESTIONNAIRES

11.1 The role of direct questioning 256

11.2 The advantages of mail questionnaires 257

11.3 The limitations of mail questionnaires 260

11.4 Non-response in mail surveys 262

 

12 METHODS OF COLLECTING THE INFORMATION III—INTERVIEWING

12.1 Types of interviewing 270

12.2 The nature of the survey interview 271

12.3 The interviewer’s task 273

12.4 Selection and training 282

12.5 Some practical points 291

12.6 Informal interviewing 296

 

13 QUESTIONNAIRES

13.1 General principles of design 303

13.2 Question content 310

13.3 Question wording 318

13.4 Open and pre-coded questions 341

13.5 Question order 346

13.6 Concluding remarks 347

 

14 SCALING METHODS

14.1 Introduction 350

14.2 Types of scales 352

14.3 Reliability and validity 353

14.4 General procedures in attitude scaling 357

14.5 Rating scales 358

14.6 Thurstone scales 360

14.7 Likert scales 361

14.8 Guttman scales 366

14.9 Semantic differential 373

14.10 Concluding remarks 376

 

15 RESPONSE ERRORS

15.1 Response bias and response variance 378

15.2 Sources of response errors 385

15.3 Operation of response errors 388

15.4 Detection of response errors 392

15.5 Control and measurement of response errors 403

 

16 PROCESSING OF THE DATA

16.1 Editing 410

16.2 Coding 414

16.3 Tabulation 428

 

17 ANALYSIS, INTERPRETATION AND PRESENTATION

17.1 Introduction 439

17.2 Statistical description 440

17.3 Population estimates and sampling errors 442

17.4 Interpreting relationships 447

17.5 Causal models 458

17.6 Index construction 464

17.7 Presentation 467

 

18 CONCLUDING REMARKS 480

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 489

INDEX OF NAMES AND ORGANIZATIONS 527

INDEX OF SUBJECTS 538