Survey Questions: Handcrafting the Standardized Questionnaire (Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences) (Paperback)

by Jean M. Converse (Author), Dr. Stanley Presser (Author) "Surveys and polls have become a staple of American cultural life in the course of the past 40-50 years..." (more)
Key Phrases: first pretest, factorial surveys, skip patterns, United States, Ann Arbor, National Election Study (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Converse and Presser present the guiding principles for writing survey questions. They review recent research on survey questions, consider the lore of professional experience and finally present findings which have the strongest implications on writing these questions.

The authors believe that question writing must be guided by the evidence of rigorous experiment as well as intuition and experience. They are also aware that experimental results cannot be applied mechanically to the mass production of survey questions, but they do suggest a number of ways to make pilot and pre-test work more fruitful.

Survey Questions is highly readable: the authors write with both wit and grace and their material is professionally sophisticated yet accessible.

Product Details

• Paperback: 80 pages
• Publisher: Sage Publications, Inc; 1 edition (September 1, 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803927436
• ISBN-13: 978-0803927438
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #251,724 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Practical text for the survey designer, November 13, 2004

By	Monica (Eastern US) - See all my reviews

I read and absorbed this book thoroughly while working on my dissertation research, an important part of which is focused on survey design. Very practical, thorough considerations.

11 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars To mix two opposing concept handcrafting and standardizing, April 15, 1999

By A Customer

As an ass. specialist who started to work in a Marketing Research Agency, I was looking for a help in a subject which seems most difficult to me. It is to know how to prepare questions in a survey. So this book seems to help to solve my problem by giving speed my learning process.