The Practice of Survey Design and Implementation

About

Workshop content and objectives

In this workshop participants will learn how to design and implement a state-of-the-art social science survey project. The instructors will provide first-hand insights into the whole life cycle of a survey project based on their experience spanning from large international general population survey infrastructure projects, such as the European Social Survey, the International Social Survey Programme and the European Values Study, to small-scale project-driven surveys focusing on specific subpopulations. The course will focus on practical aspects and will give hands-on insights into issues that occur in survey projects through practical applications and exercises. The course’s characteristic is that it does not separate methodological questions from substantive/research questions but conceives survey research as a hole, integrating research questions and methodology. The instructors will thus prepare the participants to face the different pitfalls and complications a survey project can (and most often will) bring and will offer a toolbox to overcome such issues. Participants will be well equipped to start their own scientific survey project after having been walked through the life cycle of a survey project in practice.

Workshop design

The workshop will walk participants through the process of designing a survey from the initial idea to the publication of the data. Each day will focus on several aspects in the life cycle of a social science survey project, consisting of theoretical and practical input and hands-on exercises. Morning sessions will consist of sessions of short input presentations and short exercises, while afternoon sessions will consist of group work applying what has been discussed in the morning session. Participants can bring their own survey idea(s) to the workshop for the use in some of the group exercises, but the instructors will provide material for exercises for those without an own project.

Detailed Lecture Plan (daily schedule)

Day 1: Introduction

Introduction into surveys:

What kind of research questions require surveys?
What types of surveys do exist?
Modes of surveys
Uses of surveys, incl. analysis strategies
Data Protection
Sampling

Sampling strategies
Types of surveys and sampling
Representation and its analysis

What does “a representative survey” mean?

Day 2: Survey questions

From research questions to survey questions

Analysis and question formulation
Scales
Latent concepts and measurement
Mode adaptation
Errors and bias

The Total Survey Error paradigm

Day 3: Cross-cultural, cross-language

Cross-cultural issues in survey research

How well do concepts travel?
Approaches to cross-cultural survey development
Translation of surveys

Issues of translation
TRAPD-Approach

Day 4: Testing and fieldwork

Testing questions

qualitative and quantitative pre-tests
Testing surveys

contextual tests and programming
Fieldwork design

Layout, invitations
Fieldwork monitoring

Day 5: Dataset production

Data preparation:

Standards, open questions
De-identification
Documentation

Basic documentation
Response rate, analysis of risk of bias
Data publication:

Types of repositories

**The Summer School cannot grant credits. We only deliver a Certificate of Participation, i.e. we certify your attendance.**

If you consider using Summer School workshops to obtain credits (ECTS), you will have to investigate at your home institution (contact the person/institute responsible for your degree) to find out whether they recognise the Summer School, how many credits can be earned from a workshop/course with roughly 35 hours of teaching, no graded work, and no exams.

Make sure to investigate this matter before registering if this is important to you

Target group

graduate students, doctoral researchers, early career researchers

Prerequisites

The course addresses researchers who want to improve their knowledge on survey design and to acquire or deepen their skills in survey implementation. No particular knowledge is required except for a basic understanding of quantitative social research using survey data and basic knowledge on the notion of probability. All levels of expertise, from PhD students to senior researchers, are welcome

Fee info