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Constructing a Survey

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Quantitative Methods for the Social Sciences

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Abstract

This chapter instructs students on how to conduct a survey. Topics covered include question design, question wording, the use of open- and closed-ended questions, measurement, pre-testing, and refining a survey. As part of this chapter, students construct their own survey.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For data analytical reasons, it is important to specify your dependent variable as a continuous variable, as the statistical techniques, you will learn later frequently require that the dependent variable is continuous.

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Further Reading

    Nuts and Bolts of Survey Research

    • Nardi, P. M. (2018). Doing survey research: A guide to quantitative methods. London: Routledge (Chap. 1; Chap. 4). Chapter 1 of this book provides a nice introduction why we do survey research, why it is important, and what important insights it can bring to the social sciences. Chapter 4 gives a nice introduction into questionnaire developments and the different steps that go into the construction of a survey.

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    Constructing a Survey

    • Krosnick, J. A. (2018). Questionnaire design. In The Palgrave handbook of survey research (pp. 439–455). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Short and comprehensive summary of the dominant literature into questionnaire design. Good as a first read of the topic.

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    • Saris, W. E., & Gallhofer, I. N. (2014). Design, evaluation, and analysis of questionnaires for survey research. San Francisco: Wiley. A very comprehensive guide into the design of surveys. Among others, the book thoroughly discusses how concepts become questions, how we can come up with response categories for the questions we use, and how to structure questions.

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    Applied Texts: Question Wording

    • Lundmark, S., Gilljam, M., & Dahlberg, S. (2015). Measuring generalized trust: An examination of question wording and the number of scale points. Public Opinion Quarterly, 80(1), 26–43. The authors show that the question wording of the general questions about trust in other individuals (i.e. generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted?) matters in getting accurate responses.

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. School of Political Studies, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

      Daniel Stockemer

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    1. Daniel Stockemer
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    Stockemer, D. (2019). Constructing a Survey. In: Quantitative Methods for the Social Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99118-4_4

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    • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99118-4_4

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    • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

    • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-99117-7

    • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-99118-4

    • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

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