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Survey Design and Analysis

Course Dates and Times

Monday 30 July - Friday 3 August

09:00-10:30 / 11:00-12:30

Julia Koltai

koltai.juli@gmail.com

Institution: Eötvös Loránd University

Surveys ask a lot of people a lot of questions. They are arguably the most popular method of data collection as it is supposedly straight forward to run a survey. However, in practice, designing survey collecting good quality data is a lot more complex. This course provides in-depth guidelines to survey research design and implementation of surveys from the initial planning phase to the data analysis as a final step. The course guides the students through every step of survey methodology, and thus, let students have the opportunity to have a whole picture about these kinds of researches.

Tasks for ECTS Credits

Participants attending the course: 2 credits (pass/fail grade) The workload for the calculation of ECTS credits is based on the assumption that students attend classes and carry out the necessary reading and/or other work prior to, and after, classes.
Participants attending the course and completing one task (see below): 3 credits (to be graded)
Participants attending the course, and completing two tasks (see below): 4 credits (to be graded)

To receive 2 ECTS, you will have done the readings and taken part actively in the course.

To receive 3 credits, participants will complete the daily assignments.

For a fourth credit, participants will be set a take-home paper to complete. You will be given the deadline to return the paper during the class.

Instructor Bio

Julia Koltai is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Eötvös Loránd University. She is also a research fellow at the Centre for Social Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences. She gained her PhD in sociology in 2013.

Julia has led several domestic research programs and has taken part in international research projects and groups, including EU FP6-funded programs.

Her main scientific focus is on statistics and social research methodology, so her research has ranged widely, from minority research through political participation to social justice and integration.

In recent years, Julia's interest has turned to computational social science, especially network analysis and big data processing.

@koltaijuli

In the course, first, we place survey research in the space of social research methodology and get a general picture about the lifecycle of a survey research. We will also detail the different modes of data collection. On the second day, we focus on the sampling methods and start to work on the creation of a questionnaire. On the third day, we will we cover measurements of survey constructs; discuss how to write survey questions and what to be careful about when creating a whole questionnaire. We will show how to make sure the questions measure what they are intended to measure; talk about the design effect on responses, and the causes of nonresponse. On day four, the database made from the answers will be in center of the classes: its structure, the data cleaning and weighting processes and the frame, within one can decide about the way of the data analysis. (However, it is important to mention, that no detailed data analysis techniques will be showed in this course, as there is a dedicated course category for that with multiple courses on every level.) On the final day, we will deal with coherent and comprehensive concept, namely with the harmonization of every research step, from the hypothesis, through questionnaire design, until data analysis. We will also talk about the future of survey research, about the emerging and competing techniques and its place in the forming new paradigm. Daily assignments can be made on a topic, given by the instructor; or on other research interests of the students.

No specific prerequisite knowledge is needed; it is also not necessary to have any skills on using statistical software. The course focuses on the design of surveys, not on the analysis of survey data.

However, some basic practical experience in analyzing data is beneficial, especially about variable transformation, cross tabulation and mean analysis.

Day	Topic	Details
1 - Session 1	The place of survey in the space of social research methodology The lifecycle of a survey research	Qualitative and quantitative methods Validity, reliability, causality The lifecycle of a survey research: from finding a research topic to publication
1 - Session 2	Survey mode choices	PAPI, CAPI, CASI, CATI, and CAWI
2 - Session 1	Sampling	Basic concepts Representativity Probability and non-probability sampling Multi-stage sampling The role of stratification
2 - Session 2	Questionnaire design#1	Levels of measurement of survey constructs How to write survey questions: principles
3 - Session 1	Questionnaire design#2	How to write survey questions: concepts and examples
3 - Session 2	Questionnaire design#3	Design effect Causes of nonresponse
4 - Session 1	Database creation Techniques for maximizing data quality	Data recording Structure of the dataset Data cleaning Weighting
4 - Session 2	How to choose the proper analytical technique	The importance of levels of measurement The goals of description, classification and analysis
5 - Session 1	Hypothesis, questionnaire design and analysis	How to think forward and backward at the same time: the synchronization of hypothesis, survey questions and statistical testing
5 - Session 2	The future of survey research	Emerging methods of alternative data collection The fluid concept of outer validity Surveys vs. digital data: the concept of datafusion The less sharp edges of quantitative and qualitative analysis

Day	Readings
1	Robert M. Groves, Floyd J. Fowler Jr., Mick P. Couper, James M. Lepkowski, Eleanor Singer, Roger Tourangeau (2009): Survey Methodology. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. – Chapter 2.; 9. Edith D. de Leeuw, Joop J. Hox and Don A. Dillman (eds.) (2008): International Handbook of Survey Methodology. Routledge. – Chapter 7; 11-16.
2	Robert M. Groves, Floyd J. Fowler Jr., Mick P. Couper, James M. Lepkowski, Eleanor Singer, Roger Tourangeau (2009): Survey Methodology. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. – Chapter 3-4. Edith D. de Leeuw, Joop J. Hox and Don A. Dillman (eds.) (2008): International Handbook of Survey Methodology. Routledge. – Chapter 6.
3	Robert M. Groves, Floyd J. Fowler Jr., Mick P. Couper, James M. Lepkowski, Eleanor Singer, Roger Tourangeau (2009): Survey Methodology. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. – Chapter 7. Edith D. de Leeuw, Joop J. Hox and Don A. Dillman (eds.) (2008): International Handbook of Survey Methodology. Routledge. – Chapter 2-3.;8-9.
4	Robert M. Groves, Floyd J. Fowler Jr., Mick P. Couper, James M. Lepkowski, Eleanor Singer, Roger Tourangeau (2009): Survey Methodology. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. – Chapter 10. Edith D. de Leeuw, Joop J. Hox and Don A. Dillman (eds.) (2008): International Handbook of Survey Methodology. Routledge. – Chapter 17.
5	Burrows, R., & Savage, M. (2014). After the crisis? Big Data and the methodological challenges of empirical sociology. Big Data & Society, 1(1), 2053951714540280. Lazer, D., & Radford, J. (2017). Data ex Machina: Introduction to Big Data. Annual Review of Sociology, 43:19.39. Edith D. de Leeuw, Joop J. Hox and Don A. Dillman (eds.) (2008): International Handbook of Survey Methodology. Routledge. – Chapter 26.

Software Requirements

Participants are asked to bring their own laptops with some text editor with possible formatting options (like Microsoft Word). For the last day, excel (or other database manager program) is needed, plus any statistical software (like SPSS and STATA) is good to have, but not necessary at all. Students will use excel to understand the structure of survey databases.

Hardware Requirements

Every participant is asked to bring their own laptops, both PC/Windows and Mac are suitable. There is not specific hardware requirement.

Recommended Courses to Cover Before this One

Summer School

Knowing and the Known: The Philosophy and Methodology of the Social Sciences

Stats Refresher using Excel

Recommended Courses to Cover After this One