Survey Research: Design, Implementation and Data Processing

Central to the course is survey quality and the reduction of Total Survey Error (coverage, sampling, nonresponse, including questionnaire and mode effects), while balancing logistics and survey costs.

Changes in technology and society strongly influence modern survey research. This course covers the essentials of modern survey methodology and analysis and is organized by the Department of Methodology and Statistics. Central to the course is survey quality and the reduction of Total Survey Error (coverage, sampling, nonresponse, and measurement error, including questionnaire and mode effects), while balancing logistics and survey costs. Topics include state of the art survey design, questionnaire construction and testing, modes of and devices for data collection, data processing and survey analysis techniques, such as nonresponse analysis and scale and index construction and the design of multi-source statistics. Best practice guidelines for phases of the survey from design to implementation, analysis and reporting will be discussed. International comparative and longitudinal surveys are included. Best practice guidelines for surveys from design to implementation, analysis and reporting will be discussed.

Graduate students, academic researchers, researchers in the public and private sector, heads of departments, managers, and commissioners of research are increasingly dealing with surveys. This course is intended as an introduction at master/graduate level for those who are new to modern survey methodology and as a refresher course for those with some experience in survey methodology. Current developments will be reviewed and research literature will be discussed. The course includes consultation sessions on Friday afternoon.

During this course, participants have the valuable opportunity to tap into on-location expertise. Our instructor is a seasoned survey methodologist with extensive experience in pretesting, questionnaire design, measurement quality assessment, and proficiency in conducting web surveys and mixed-device surveys

Prerequisites: A basic knowledge of methods and statistics (e.g. descriptive statistics) is required. In the course SPSS will be used, but specific knowledge of SPSS is not required. Participants are requested to bring their own laptop Software will be available online.

Good follow up are our Summer School courses ‘Survey research: Statistical analysis and estimation’ (S16) and Cross-national data: From questionnaire development to analysis (S72).

Whether you are working with survey data, intend to commission a survey, or carry out a survey yourself, if you want to know more about designing modern surveys this course is for you. This course assumes minimally bachelor level knowledge of methods and statistics. In the course SPSS will be used, but specific knowledge of SPSS is not required. In addition, exercises will be available in R. The course is intended for students, professionals, and managers from a variety of fields, such as social and behavioral research, marketing, business, health sciences, and official statistics, who would like to learn more about the survey process in the 21st century.

A maximum of 40 participants will be allowed in this course. Please note that the selection for this course will be done on a first-come-first-served basis.

The aim of this course is to provide an overview of theory and practice of modern survey design. This course is useful for both novices in survey methodology and for more experienced students, who want to refresh their knowledge. After the course, participants are ready to apply the learned towards their own surveys, are able to critically assess existing surveys and survey documentation, and are able to take advanced training in survey methodology and analysis.