Survey Errors And Survey Costs

The Wiley-Interscience Paperback Series consists of selected books that have been made more accessible to consumers in an effort to increase global appeal and general circulation. With these new unabridged softcover volumes, Wiley hopes to extend the lives of these works by making them available to future generations of statisticians, mathematicians, and scientists. "Survey Errors and Survey Costs is a well-written, well-presented, and highly readable text that should be on every error-conscious statistician’s bookshelf. Any courses that cover the theory and design of surveys should certainly have Survey Errors and Survey Costs on their reading lists." –Phil Edwards MEL, Aston University Science Park, UK Review in The Statistician, Vol. 40, No. 3, 1991 "This volume is an extremely valuable contribution to survey methodology. It has many virtues: First, it provides a framework in which survey errors can be segregated by sources. Second, Groves has skillfully synthesized existing knowledge, bringing together in an easily accessible form empirical knowledge from a variety of sources. Third, he has managed to integrate into a common framework the contributions of several disciplines. For example, the work of psychometricians and cognitive psychologists is made relevant to the research of econometricians as well as the field experience of sociologists. Finally, but not least, Groves has managed to present all this in a style that is accessible to a wide variety of readers ranging from survey specialists to policymakers." –Peter H. Rossi University of Massachusetts at Amherst Review in Journal of Official Statistics, January 1991

The Wiley-Interscience Paperback Series consists of selected books that have been made more accessible to consumers in an effort to increase global appeal and general circulation. With these new unabridged softcover volumes, Wiley hopes to extend the lives of these works by making them available to future generations of statisticians, mathematicians, and scientists. "Survey Errors and Survey Costs is a well-written, well-presented, and highly readable text that should be on every error-conscious statistician’s bookshelf. Any courses that cover the theory and design of surveys should certainly have Survey Errors and Survey Costs on their reading lists." –Phil Edwards MEL, Aston University Science Park, UK Review in The Statistician, Vol. 40, No. 3, 1991 "This volume is an extremely valuable contribution to survey methodology. It has many virtues: First, it provides a framework in which survey errors can be segregated by sources. Second, Groves has skillfully synthesized existing knowledge, bringing together in an easily accessible form empirical knowledge from a variety of sources. Third, he has managed to integrate into a common framework the contributions of several disciplines. For example, the work of psychometricians and cognitive psychologists is made relevant to the research of econometricians as well as the field experience of sociologists. Finally, but not least, Groves has managed to present all this in a style that is accessible to a wide variety of readers ranging from survey specialists to policymakers." –Peter H. Rossi University of Massachusetts at Amherst Review in Journal of Official Statistics, January 1991

Peruse the history of survey research and the essential conceptsfor data quality. With an emphasis on total survey error, theauthors review principles and concepts in the field and examineimportant unresolved issues in survey methods. Spanning a range oftopics dealing with the quality of data collected through thesurvey process, they focus on such key issues as: * Major sources of survey error, examining the origins of eacherror source most successful methods for reducing errors from thosesources * Methods most often used in practice for evaluating the effectsof the source on total survey error * Implications of improving survey quality for organizationalmanagement and costs

WILEY-INTERSCIENCE PAPERBACK SERIES The Wiley-Interscience Paperback Series consists of selected books that have been made more accessible to consumers in an effort to increase global appeal and general circulation. With these new unabridged softcover volumes, Wiley hopes to extend the lives of these works by making them available to future generations of statisticians, mathematicians, and scientists. "This book will be an aid to survey statisticians and to research workers who must work with survey data." –Short Book Reviews, International Statistical Institute Measurement Errors in Surveys documents the current state of the field, reports new research findings, and promotes interdisciplinary exchanges in modeling, assessing, and reducing measurement errors in surveys. Providing a fundamental approach to measurement errors, the book features sections on the questionnaire, respondents and responses, interviewers and other means of data collection, the respondent-interviewer relationship, and the effects of measurement errors on estimation and data analysis.

Featuring a timely presentation of total survey error (TSE), this edited volume introduces valuable tools for understanding and improving survey data quality in the context of evolving large-scale data sets This book provides an overview of the TSE framework and current TSE research as related to survey design, data collection, estimation, and analysis. It recognizes that survey data affects many public policy and business decisions and thus focuses on the framework for understanding and improving survey data quality. The book also addresses issues with data quality in official statistics and in social, opinion, and market research as these fields continue to evolve, leading to larger and messier data sets. This perspective challenges survey organizations to find ways to collect and process data more efficiently without sacrificing quality. The volume consists of the most up-to-date research and reporting from over 70 contributors representing the best academics and researchers from a range of fields. The chapters are broken out into five main sections: The Concept of TSE and the TSE Paradigm, Implications for Survey Design, Data Collection and Data Processing Applications, Evaluation and Improvement, and Estimation and Analysis. Each chapter introduces and examines multiple error sources, such as sampling error, measurement error, and nonresponse error, which often offer the greatest risks to data quality, while also encouraging readers not to lose sight of the less commonly studied error sources, such as coverage error, processing error, and specification error. The book also notes the relationships between errors and the ways in which efforts to reduce one type can increase another, resulting in an estimate with larger total error. This book: • Features various error sources, and the complex relationships between them, in 25 high-quality chapters on the most up-to-date research in the field of TSE • Provides comprehensive reviews of the literature on error sources as well as data collection approaches and estimation methods to reduce their effects • Presents examples of recent international events that demonstrate the effects of data error, the importance of survey data quality, and the real-world issues that arise from these errors • Spans the four pillars of the total survey error paradigm (design, data collection, evaluation and analysis) to address key data quality issues in official statistics and survey research Total Survey Error in Practice is a reference for survey researchers and data scientists in research areas that include social science, public opinion, public policy, and business. It can also be used as a textbook or supplementary material for a graduate-level course in survey research methods.

In 1939, George Gallup's American Institute of Public Opinion published a pamphlet optimistically titled The New Science of Public Opinion Measurement. At the time, though, survey research was in its infancy, and only now, six decades later, can public opinion measurement be appropriately called a science, based in part on the development of the total survey error approach. Herbert F. Weisberg's handbook presents a unified method for conducting good survey research centered on the various types of errors that can occur in surveys—from measurement and nonresponse error to coverage and sampling error. Each chapter is built on theoretical elements drawn from specific disciplines, such as social psychology and statistics, and follows through with detailed treatments of the specific types of error and their potential solutions. Throughout, Weisberg is attentive to survey constraints, including time and ethical considerations, as well as controversies within the field and the effects of new technology on the survey process—from Internet surveys to those completed by phone, by mail, and in person. Practitioners and students will find this comprehensive guide particularly useful now that survey research has assumed a primary place in both public and academic circles.