Analysis of Survey Data (Wiley Series in Survey Methodology) [Hardcover]

R. L. Chambers (Editor), C. J. Skinner (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 15, 2003 | ISBN-10: 0471899879 | ISBN-13: 978-0471899877 | Edition: 1

This book is concerned with statistical methods for the analysis of data collected from a survey. A survey could consist of data collected from a questionnaire or from measurements, such as those taken as part of a quality control process. Concerned with the statistical methods for the analysis of sample survey data, this book will update and extend the successful book edited by Skinner, Holt and Smith on 'Analysis of Complex Surveys'. The focus will be on methodological issues, which arise when applying statistical methods to sample survey data and will discuss in detail the impact of complex sampling schemes. Further issues, such as how to deal with missing data and measurement of error will also be critically discussed. There have significant improvements in statistical software which implement complex sampling schemes (eg SUDAAN, STATA, WESVAR, PC CARP ) in the last decade and there is greater need for practical advice for those analysing survey data. To ensure a broad audience, the statistical theory will be made accessible through the use of practical examples. This book will be accessible to a broad audience of statisticians but will primarily be of interest to practitioners analysing survey data. Increased awareness by social scientists of the variety of powerful statistical methods will make this book a useful reference.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Recent years have seen a sharp increase in the application of sophisticated statistical modelling methods to sample survey data. Analysis of Survey Data aims to provide a solid basis for the statistical theory underpinning these applications. This book brings together two key statistical traditions, statistical modelling - such as regression analysis - and sample survey methods, as used for sample design and estimation.

• Provides broad coverage of statistical methodology used in the analysis of survey data.

• Discusses the theoretical foundations of this methodology from a range of perspectives.

• Covers of a wide range of techniques, including categorical data analysis, generalized linear models, and longitudinal data analysis.

• Addresses issues of complex sampling and incomplete data.

• Features examples showing how methods are used in practice.

• Each chapter is written by a leading expert in the field.

• Includes an up-to-date bibliography.

Analysis of Survey Data is aimed primarily at statisticians interested in methods of analysing sample survey data. It should also provide a useful reference to many other survey data analysts in the social sciences and in the public and private sectors.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 398 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (May 15, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471899879
• ISBN-13: 978-0471899877
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,675,644 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A research monograph on up-to-date survey statistics methodology, November 7, 2007

By 

Stanislav Kolenikov (Columbia, MO, United States; Moscow, Russia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Analysis of Survey Data (Wiley Series in Survey Methodology) (Hardcover)

I've seen a one-star review on this book, and it totally threw me off. I AM a professional statistician, and what's more I am a survey statistician. And in my niche, this book is the one of the most information-intensive and important monographs out there.

The book represents a set of invited talks from a conference at Southampton (UK), the location of the world's leading group in survey statistics. The conference was held in honor of T. M. F. Smith, a prominent survey statistician, in 1999. Those talks were delivered by highly recognized contributors to the survey statistics field: Ray Chambers and Chris Skinner provided editorial overviews of book parts as well as contributed some chapters; Roderick Little -- missing data and Bayesian methods, Jon Rao and Roland Thomas -- chi-square tests, Jerry Lawless -- history event analysis, Wayne Fuller -- multiple phase samples, and others... all at the top of their respective fields.

This is certainly NOT the first reading in survey statistics (for which I'd send people off to Lohr's Sampling: Design and Analysis or may be Korn and Graubard's Analysis of Health Surveys books), and not even the second reading (for which I'd recommend the previous collection coming from Southampton -- the 1989 book edited by Skinner, Holt and Smith, or Mary Thompson's 1997 book Theory of Sample Surveys or may be even Sarndal's book Model Assisted Survey Sampling, although some would argue the latter two are too technical/mathematical -- well that's my personal preference, I believe one needs to understand the basics deeply before going into more advanced topics). This is a monograph for people deeply in the field of survey statistics. I assigned several chapters from this book as readings for my advanced graduate class, as those are the most concise and clear treatments of topics such as design- and model-based inference (a chapter by Binder and Roberts) or population based case-control studies (a chapter by Alastair Scott and Chirs Wild).

I should note that it is likely to be difficult to use this book as a reference (unlike the classic works of Kish Survey Sampling or Cochran Sampling Techniques, 3rd Edition that do contain the foundations such as stratified and clustered samples), as it does not list all the typical designs and situations. It is a research work; some of the topics are outlined but briefly, other topics or techniques might sooner or later become outdated and replaced by newer ones, and the interest of all the authors is in complex situations. Inevitably to make any progress in those, some simplifications had to be made, so the reader may not find particular answers for his particular data and design situation, but there should be enough ideas scattered throughout the book to indicate the typical directions of biases or variance inflations that might be occurring in practice.

The list of topics highlighted in the book has probably been comprehensive to represent the frontier of research in late 1990s, and includes the foundations of survey inference, specific features of the models with categorical and continuous responses, missing data, and longitudinal data. Since then, at least two new area appeared: confidentiality and disclosure risks, and small area estimation (see Rao's Small Area Estimation).

Finally, I must applaud the editors for producing a book out of a conference that makes a coherent sense. A typical conference proceedings book is usually a nightmare, with a bunch of unrelated stuff bound under the same cover for the reasons of being delivered at a particular place at a particular time. Not with this one! The notation has been unified reasonably well across different authors; the papers have been combined (and some split) into more natural groupings, etc. The index of topics and authors is not a five minute work, either.

3 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not a practical book, January 3, 2007

By 

R. Natarajan - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Analysis of Survey Data (Wiley Series in Survey Methodology) (Hardcover)

I got this book upon recommendation from a colleague who is a statistician. But I'm not a statistician so there is lots of formulas and not any real world examples that I could understand.I had taken may be one or two courses in college about Statistics. This book didn't make any sense to me.