Customer Reviews

Elementary Survey Sampling (Statistics)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

As a survey research practitioner for nearly 20 years, I completely disagree with the above reviewers. There are plenty of terse textbooks on the topic where one can obtain derivations for formulas and drown in academic details. In contrary, this excellent book is one of the most readable references I have come across so far. Among a half dozen or so texts I have on this topic, this book is the first stop and in many cases the last stop when I need to look up something in sampling and estimation.

This text is in its sixth edition and contains all types of errors. The text doesn't bother to even give the slightest idea of how expressions are derived. Many of the formulas are incorrect. Some of the exercises are absurd. The solutions manual is no better. My recommendation is that you buy either Cochran text if you're mathematically inclined or Yamane's Elementary Sampling Theory for a more hands-on text. Don't waste your time or money on this text.

I have used this textbook and earlier editions in undergraduate teaching and in consulting work several times over the last 20 years. While I considered it only adequate, I could not find a suitable replacement for these situations (Cochran and Särndal et al. would be good for a graduate course).

I have now experimented with Sampling: Design and Analysis 2nd Ed. by Sharon L. Lohr Sampling: Design and Analysis (Advanced Series) and I have found that it completely supersedes Scheaffer et al. from all points of view. In my opinion Lohr's book and Survey Methodology 2nd ed, by Robert M. Groves et al. Survey Methodology (Wiley Series in Survey Methodology) create together an outstanding and up-to-date resource for the teaching and practice of survey sampling.

This book gives practical guidelines and does a half decent job of explaining the various estimators. Unfortunately the text had frequent typos along with typos in the formulae! Further there was a lack of proper derivation of formulas.

I am a grad student taking a class that uses this book, and conceptually, I like the book. However, I have come across so many errors in just the first five chapters that I wonder whether there was an editor for this book. I spent a good amount of time trying to figure out how they came up with one particular number just to find that it was a misprint. In one problem, there is even a blank table where there should be data. Frankly, I am just completely disappointed and dumbfounded that this book is out there being sold as a professional product, and I am angry that I paid good money for it. I know most books will have the odd typo of some sort, but I have found way too many in this book, and it has cost me extra time which I do not have in grad school. From what I have seen with other classmates though, the 6th edition seems to be in better order.