Introduction to Survey Quality

Paul P. Biemer, Lars E. Lyberg9780471193753, 0471193755

Peruse the history of survey research and the essential concepts for data quality. With an emphasis on total survey error, the authors review principles and concepts in the field and examine important unresolved issues in survey methods. Spanning a range of topics dealing with the quality of data collected through the survey process, they focus on such key issues as: * Major sources of survey error, examining the origins of each error source most successful methods for reducing errors from those sources * Methods most often used in practice for evaluating the effects of the source on total survey error * Implications of improving survey quality for organizational management and costs

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Table of contents :
Introduction to Survey Quality……Page 5
Copyright……Page 6
Contents……Page 9
Preface……Page 13
1.1 THE CONCEPT OF A SURVEY……Page 17
1.2 TYPES OF SURVEYS……Page 22
1.3 BRIEF HISTORY OF SURVEY METHODOLOGY……Page 24
1.4 THE QUALITY REVOLUTION……Page 28
1.5 DEFINITIONS OF QUALITY AND QUALITY IN STATISTICAL ORGANIZATIONS……Page 29
1.6 MEASURING QUALITY……Page 34
1.7 IMPROVING QUALITY……Page 38
1.8 QUALITY IN A NUTSHELL……Page 40
2.1 OVERVIEW OF THE SURVEY PROCESS……Page 42
2.2 DATA QUALITY AND TOTAL SURVEY ERROR……Page 50
2.3 DECOMPOSING NONSAMPLING ERROR INTO ITS COMPONENT PARTS……Page 54
2.4 GAUGING THE MAGNITUDE OF TOTAL SURVEY ERROR……Page 59
2.5 MEAN SQUARED ERROR……Page 67
2.6 ILLUSTRATION OF THE CONCEPTS……Page 76
3. Coverage and Nonresponse Error……Page 79
3.1 COVERAGE ERROR……Page 80
3.2 MEASURES OF COVERAGE BIAS……Page 84
3.3 REDUCING COVERAGE BIAS……Page 93
3.4 UNIT NONRESPONSE ERROR……Page 96
3.5 CALCULATING RESPONSE RATES……Page 101
3.6 REDUCING NONRESPONSE BIAS……Page 107
4.1 COMPONENTS OF MEASUREMENT ERROR……Page 132
4.2 ERRORS ARISING FROM THE QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN……Page 135
4.3 UNDERSTANDING THE RESPONSE PROCESS……Page 139
5. Errors Due to Interviewers and Interviewing……Page 165
5.1 ROLE OF THE INTERVIEWER……Page 166
5.2 INTERVIEWER VARIABILITY……Page 172
5.3 DESIGN FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE INTERVIEWER EFFECTS……Page 186
5.4 EVALUATION OF INTERVIEWER PERFORMANCE……Page 195
6. Data Collection Modes and Associated Errors……Page 204
6.1 MODES OF DATA COLLECTION……Page 205
6.2 DECISION REGARDING MODE……Page 221
6.3 SOME EXAMPLES OF MODE EFFECTS……Page 226
7. Data Processing: Errors and Their Control……Page 231
7.1 OVERVIEW OF DATA PROCESSING STEPS……Page 232
7.2 NATURE OF DATA PROCESSING ERROR……Page 235
7.3 DATA CAPTURE ERRORS……Page 238
7.4 POST ¨C DATA CAPTURE EDITING……Page 242
7.5 CODING……Page 250
7.6 FILE PREPARATION……Page 261
7.7 APPLICATIONS OF CONTINUOUS QUALITY IMPROVEMENT:THE CASE OF CODING……Page 266
7.8 INTEGRATION ACTIVITIES……Page 273
8.1 PURPOSES OF SURVEY ERROR EVALUATION……Page 274
8.2 EVALUATION METHODS FOR DESIGNING AND PRETESTING SURVEYS……Page 278
8.3 METHODS FOR MONITORING AND CONTROLLING DATA QUALITY……Page 294
8.4 POSTSURVEY EVALUATIONS……Page 299
8.5 SUMMARY OF EVALUATION METHODS……Page 317
9. Sampling Error……Page 321
9.1 BRIEF HISTORY OF SAMPLING……Page 322
9.2 NONRANDOM SAMPLING METHODS……Page 325
9.3 SIMPLE RANDOM SAMPLING……Page 329
9.4 STATISTICAL INFERENCE IN THE PRESENCE OF NONSAMPLING ERRORS……Page 348
9.5 OTHER METHODS OF RANDOM SAMPLING……Page 354
9.6 CONCLUDING REMARKS……Page 365
10. Practical Survey Design for Minimizing Total Survey Error……Page 367
10.1 BALANCE BETWEEN COST, SURVEY ERROR,AND OTHER QUALITY FEATURES……Page 368
10.2 PLANNING A SURVEY FOR OPTIMAL QUALITY……Page 373
10.3 DOCUMENTING SURVEY QUALITY……Page 383
10.4 ORGANIZATIONAL ISSUES RELATED TO SURVEY QUALITY……Page 389
References……Page 393
Index……Page 413