Research and Course Guides: Survey Research: Info about Survey Research

Surveys

Encyclopedia of Research Design by Neil J. Salkind (Editor)
Publication Date: 2010-06-22
Reliability and Validity Assessment by Edward G. Carmines; Richard A. Zeller
Publication Date: 1979-11-01
Differential Item Functioning by Howard T. Everson; Steven J. Osterlind
Publication Date: 2009-09-30
Ordinal Item Response Theory by Wijbrandt H. Schuur
Publication Date: 2011-05-04
Survey Questions by Jean M. Converse; Stanley Presser
Publication Date: 1986-09-01
Survey Questions is a highly readable guide to the principles of writing survey questions. The authors review recent research on survey questions, consider the lore of professional experience and finally present those findings which have the strongest implications on writing these questions.
Assessing Inequality by Lingxin Hao (Editor); Daniel Q. Naiman
Publication Date: 2010-05-26
Providing basic foundations for measuring inequality from the perspective of distributional properties This ;monograph reviews a set of widely used summary inequality measures, and the lesser known relative distribution method provides the basic rationale behind each measure and discusses their interconnections.

Project Planner

Sage Research Methods Online now includes a step by step guide to doing research, including links to books, chapters, and papers that help you understand specific parts of your research journey.

As with everything, read critically! Sage publishes from the UK. Some of the definitions may differ from ours. For example, the terms "primary research/sources", "secondary research/sources", and "grey literature" differ from our terminology. (These terms also differ based on discipline, so that could be part of the problem.)

Little Blue Books

Videos on Research

Introduction to Survey Research
From the transcript: "And I think what's important, again, like young people and children just want to know what that research is about. And I think they need to understand what their involvement might mean, what it might mean for their friends and family, perhaps, if it's part of that kind of wider project."
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The history of survey research goes back a long way. If you think of the Bible, Jesus was on his way in his mother's tummy to be measured as part of a census. So if you are the idea of measuring populations, systematically counting usually for the purposes of taxation, it goes back a long, long way, even before the time of Jesus.
Using Twitter as Social Science Research
"...in terms of actually researching it we don't necessarily have great methods for it. In fact the discipline of history is probably more well developed for that. "
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So my research is mainly looking at how Twitter can be used to understand social phenomenon.

So the bottom line is we don't really know who tweets. There are lots of surveys that ask about Twitter uses, but my research starts with Twitter itself, trying to pick up people whose gender, their age, and occupations by the clues they give us in their metadata, their description fields, and in their activity on Twitter.
Practitioner Inquiry
So practitioner inquiry is not so much a method, although it's often associated with action research because action research is a common methodological approach within practitioner inquiry. Practitioner inquiry is about the practitioner, whether they're a teacher, a lawyer, a doctor, or a social worker thinking about their work in a very curious but also very systematic way.

Doing Graduate Research

Guess what? We have a new database that has tons of resources to help you develop and think through your research. Anything you're interested in doing, it will help you figure out how and why. Videos, books, journal articles, and chapters to inspire you!

The Essential Guide to Postgraduate Study by David Wilkinson
ISBN: 9781412900621
Publication Date: 2005-10-10
Blending Qualitative and Quantitative Research Methods in Theses and Dissertations by R. Murray Thomas
ISBN: 9780761939313
Publication Date: 2003-03-25

Subject Guide

Merrie Davidson

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Contact:

O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library | LIB 153

651-962-5007

Subjects: Citing Sources, Criminal Justice, Family Studies, Neuroscience, Psychology, Social Work, Sociology