Customer Reviews

Designing and Conducting Survey Research: A Comprehensive Guide (Jossey Bass Public Administration Series)

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I had taken on a consultation project in which the task was to develop a climate survey for use within a public school system. I painstakingly reviewed various research journals and books pertaining to the subject matter of survey design. The information gathered from these sources was helpful, but not adequate. Fortunately, I discovered the book "Designing and Conducting Survey Research: A Comprehensive Guide" in a library. This book provided me with information that was not only invaluable in my efforts to develop an actual survey instrument, but additionally guided my efforts in designing focus groups to validate my instrument. This publication assisted me with focusing my design efforts. The various appendices provide exceptional reference material. I was so impressed with the information that it provided me, I purchased the text to have as a readily available resource for my future survey endeavors. To all who are embarking on their first survey design journey, or to those of you who are seasoned veterans, do yourself justice and explore this publication.

This is an excellent reference book for writing survey questions, for ensuring population representation in your samples and for interpting the responses. It even includes reference statistical tables for use in analysis of survey responses. All this in a small volume that is easily understood because it is so well written! It hits the nail right on the head. If you are conducting surveys or must present results after a survey is completed, this is a "must read" book.

This is an excellent reference book for writing survey questions, for ensuring population representation in your samples and for intrepting the responses. It even includes reference statistical tables for use in analysis of survey responses. All this in a small volume that is easily understood because it is so well written! It hits the nail right on the head. If you are conducting surveys or must present results after a survey is completed, this is a "must read" book.

This book has been a god-send for the work I'm doing in developing a survey research series for a local non-profit. What makes it so great is that it has a very strong overall and comprehensive approach to survey research, not surveys, not analyzing surveys but the WHOLE concept of survey research.

Developing, administering questionnaires
- overview of survey sample process
- desigining effective questionnaires (types, layout, lenght, questions)
- developing survey questions (closed, open, scaled, ranked...)
- utilizing focus groups (pre-testing, piloting)

Ensuring scientific accuracy
- descriptive stats, central tendency and dispersion
- theoretical basis of sampling (stratified, clustered)
- confidence intervals
- determining sample sizes
- selecting representative samples (general, working and sample pops)

Presenting, Analyzing Survey Results
- cross-tabulated data analysis
- testing difference between means
- regression and correlation
- preparing an effective final report

You will get what you need out of this to start an effective survey research program or any activity. Surveys are becoming more frequent and 'easy' way of collecting data, but if you dont know why you're collecting it and what you're going to do with it - you're wasting your time with surveys. This book presents the concept of setting up a plan of action towards research which leads to better surveys and better questions, thus data.

Couple this with "Improving Survey Questions" (Fowler Jr), "How to Measure Survey Reliability and Validity" (Litwin) and "How to Analyze Survey Data" (Fink) and you will have a nice library of resources.

To start the overall program evaluation process, how about "Measuring Performance in Public and Nonprofit Organizations" (Poister)?

This text is easy to read and has helped me in constructing a mail-out survey.

I purchased this text in order to brush up on some of the basic survey techniques for some work-related research projects. It has worked wonders for our sample selection and data collection processes.

A good compilation to start with. But makes survey design look too simplistic that it is not. So, be careful while jumping to conclusions.

This book will come in very handy, seems fairly easy to read and follow. Can't wait to utilize it to the fullest, I may come back and place a new review : ) Depending on the outcome.