Researchers interested in studying the frequency of events or behaviors among a population must rely on count data provided by sampled individuals. Often, this involves a decision between live event counting, such as a behavioral diary, and recalled aggregate counts. Diaries are generally more accurate, but their greater cost and respondent burden…

The network scale-up method (NSUM) is a survey-based method for estimating the number of individuals in a hidden or hard-to-reach subgroup of a general population. In NSUM surveys, sampled individuals report how many others they know in the subpopulation of interest (e.g. "How many sex workers do you know?") and how many others they know…

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…

The growing use of scales in survey questionnaires warrants the need to address how does polytomous differential item functioning (DIF) affect observed scale score comparisons. The aim of this study is to investigate the impact of DIF on the type I error and effect size of the independent samples t-test on the observed total scale scores. A…

Mixed-mode surveys are known to be susceptible to mode-dependent selection and measurement effects, collectively referred to as mode effects. The use of different data collection modes within the same survey may reduce selectivity of the overall response but is characterized by measurement errors differing across modes. Inference in sample surveys…

Survey data are often subject to various types of errors such as misclassification. In this article, we consider a model where interest is simultaneously in two correlated response variables and one is potentially subject to misclassification. A motivating example of a recent study of the impact of a sexual education course for adolescents is…

Measurement invariance (MI) is a property of measurement that is often implicitly assumed, but in many cases, not tested. When the assumption of MI is tested, it generally involves determining if the measurement holds longitudinally or cross-culturally. A growing literature shows that other groupings can, and should, be considered as well.…

The impacts of incorrect responses to reverse-coded survey items were examined in this simulation study by reversing responses to traditional Likert-format items from 700 administrators in randomly selected schools in a 7-county region in central Arkansas that were obtained from an archival dataset. Specifically, the number of reverse-coded items…

Standard statistical methods are used to analyze data that is assumed to be collected using a simple random sampling scheme. These methods, however, tend to underestimate variance when the data is collected with a cluster design, which is often found in educational survey research. The purposes of this paper are to demonstrate how a cluster design…

Large scale surveys usually employ a complex sampling design and as a consequence, no standard methods for estimation of the standard errors associated with the estimates of population means are available. Resampling methods, such as jackknife or bootstrap, are often used, with reference to their properties of robustness and reduction of bias. A…

The authors describe 2 efficiency (planned missing data) designs for measurement: the 3-form design and the 2-method measurement design. The 3-form design, a kind of matrix sampling, allows researchers to leverage limited resources to collect data for 33% more survey questions than can be answered by any 1 respondent. Power tables for estimating…