This case study focuses on a multidecade time-series study of changes in public acceptance of evolution in the United States. Change over time is often a central issue in social science research. There are two kinds of change over time. Time-series studies address change in populations or groups over time. Longitudinal studies address changes in…

Address-based sampling (ABS) refers to the use a list of addresses derived from the U.S. Postal Service's Computerized Delivery Sequence File as a sampling frame. While most residential addresses are included on an ABS frame, it still suffers from undercoverage. Undercoverage is problematic only if the uncovered units have different attributes…

This article details the challenges we faced in collecting sensitive information in an ethnically and religiously divided community that has experienced recent violence. The discussion is based on a summer 2016 survey experiment we conducted in Jos, Nigeria, to gather information regarding residents' perceptions of local communal violence. We…

Factorial surveys use a population of vignettes to elicit respondents' attitudes or beliefs about different hypothetical scenarios. However, the vignette population is frequently too large to be assessed by each respondent. Experimental designs such as randomized block confounded factorial (RBCF) designs, D-optimal designs, or random sampling…

In the field of social sciences, certain tasks, such as the identification of typologies and the characterization of groups of individuals according to a set of questions, tend to pose a challenge for researchers. Further complications arise if the chosen rating scale is from 0 to 10, since the responses can be treated either as metric or…

Respondent attrition is a common problem in national longitudinal panel surveys. To make full use of the data, weights are provided to account for attrition. Weight adjustments are based on sampling design information and data from the base year; information from subsequent waves is typically not utilized. Alternative methods to address bias from…

This article addresses the problem of estimating the proportion Pi[subscript S] of the population belonging to a sensitive group using optional randomized response technique in stratified sampling based on Mangat model that has proportional and Neyman allocation and larger gain in efficiency. Numerically, it is found that the suggested model is…

This technical paper examines the issue of attrition bias in two cohorts of the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY), based on an analysis using data from 1995 to 2002. Data up to 2002 provided eight years of information on members of the Y95 cohort and five years of information on members of the Y98 cohort. This study suggests that…

This research note examines respondent-nonrespondent bias in a statewide population survey. The findings indicate general support for using master lists in the selection of respondents for participation in a large mail questionnaire survey. Two papers follow which react to this information. (Author/CT)

This chapter provides an overview of sampling methods that are appropriate for conducting online surveys. The authors review some of the basic concepts relevant to online survey sampling, present some probability and nonprobability techniques for selecting a sample, and briefly discuss sample size determination and nonresponse bias. Although some…

To test the use of Bayes's theorem to adjust for nonresponse bias, 600 hospitals were used in a simulated sample survey. On the basis of known information on five variables, Bayes's formula correctly predicted the status of 92 of the 100 "nonrespondents" relative to a sixth variable. (Author/BW)

Standards relating to sampling methodology are summarized, deviations from these standards in a random sample of 30 research reports are identified, and specific recommendations for improving sampling methods to enhance research applicability for practice are made. A high proportion of the studies examined had at least one major sampling…

This brief guide to interview training in survey research is designed for persons without previous training or experience in interviewing. Basic techniques of interviewing are presented in such a manner as to facilitate the training of persons with varying educational and socioeconomic backgrounds. Topics include: the interviewer's role in the…

Tells how staff members of a college newspaper worked out a procedure for obtaining and interviewing a sample of students that accurately represented the entire student body. (GT)

Problems of definition in estimation in evaluation research were studied through a survey of homeless persons in Cook County (Illinois) based on 481 interviews. Differences arising from the following four population definitions are presented: (1) traditional homeless; (2) marginally housed; (3) social isolates; and (4) total of these categories.…