Social and Behavioral Research and the Internet
Marcel Das, Peter Ester and Lars Kaczmirek (editors), Social and Behavioral Research and the Internet – Advances in Applied Methods and Research Strategies, Routledge, 2011, ISBN 9781848728172, 449 pp. Highlighting the progress made by researchers in using Web-based surveys for data collection, this volume summarizes the experiences of leading behavioral and social scientists from Europe and the US who collected data using the Internet. Some chapters present theory, methodology, design, and implementation, while others focus on best practice examples and/or issues such as data quality and understanding paradata. A number of contributors applied innovative Web-based research methods to the LISS panel of CentERdata collected from over 5,000 Dutch households. Their findings are presented in the book. Some of the data is available on the book Web site. The book addresses practical issues such as data quality, how to reach difficult target groups, how to design a survey to maximize response, and ethical issues that need to be considered. Innovative applications such as the use of biomarkers and eye-tracking techniques are also explored.
Part I – “Methodology in Internet Survey Research” – provides an overview of Internet survey research including its methodologies, strengths, challenges, and best practices. Innovative ways to minimize sources of error are provided along with a review of mixed-mode designs, how to design a scientifically sound longitudinal panel and avoid sampling problems, and address ethical requirements in Web surveys. Following Chapter 1 “Introduction”, by Marcel Das, Peter Ester and Lars Kaczmirek, Part 1 includes: Chapter 2 “Internet Survey Methods: A Review of Strengths, Weaknesses, and Innovations”, by Jolene D. Smyth and Jennie E. Pearson; Chapter 3 “Internet Surveys as Part of a Mixed-Mode Design”, by Edith D. de Leeuw and Joop J. Hox; Chapter 4 “`True’ Longitudinal and Probability-Based Internet Panels: Evidence From the Netherlands”, by Annette C. Scherpenzeel and Marcel Das; Chapter 5 “How Representative Are Online Panels? Problems of Coverage and Selection and Possible Solutions”, by Annette C. Scherpenzeel and Jelke G. Bethlehem; and Chapter 6 “Ethical Considerations in Internet Surveys”, by Eleanor Singer and Mick P. Couper.
Part II – “Advanced Methods and Applications” – focuses on advanced applications including the impact of visual design on the interpretability of survey questions, the impact survey usability has on respondents’ answers, design features that increase interaction, and how Internet surveys can be effectively used to study sensitive issues. It includes: Chapter 7 “How Visual Design Affects the Interpretability of Survey Questions”, by Vera Toepoel and Don A. Dillman; Chapter 8 “Attention and Usability in Internet Surveys: Effects of Visual Feedback in Grid Questions”, by Lars Kaczmirek; Chapter 9 “Using Interactive Features to Motivate and Probe Responses to Open-Ended Questions”, by Marije Oudejans and Leah Melani Christian; and Chapter 10 “Measuring Attitudes toward Controversial Issues in Internet Surveys: Order Effects of Open and Closed Questioning”, by Peter Ester and Henk Vinken.
Part III – “Data Quality: Problems and Solutions” – addresses data quality, sample selection, measurement and non-response error, and new applications for collecting online data. The issue of underrepresentation of certain groups in Internet research and the measures most effective at reducing it are also addressed. It includes: Chapter 11 “Challenges in Reaching Hard-to-Reach Groups in Internet Panel Research”, by Corrie M. Vis and Miquelle A. G. Marchand; Chapter 12 “Mode and Context Effects in Measuring Household Assets”, by Arthur van Soest and Arie Kapteyn; Chapter 13 “Internet Survey Paradata”, by Dirk Heerwegh; Chapter 14 “Use of Eye Tracking for Studying Survey Response Processes”, by Mirta Galesic and Ting Yan; and Chapter 15 “Can Biomarkers Be Collected in an Internet Survey? A Pilot Study in the LISS Panel”, by Mauricio Avendano, Annette C. Scherpenzeel, and Johan P. Mackenbach.
The book concludes with a discussion of the importance of paradata and the Web data collection process in general: Chapter 16 “Discussion and Conclusions”, by Marcel Das, Peter Ester, and Lars Kaczmirek.
Daniel Dorling, The Population of the UK, 2012, Sage Publications, Second Edition, ISBN 9781446252970, 232 pp. The author has published with many colleagues more than a dozen books on issues related to social inequalities in Britain, concerning housing, health, employment, education and poverty. This book explains how geography makes a difference to life outcomes. It explains the geographical differences in key socio-economic variables such as education, health and work that illustrate the UK's stark social inequalities and affect everyone's lives. It contains over 100 maps drawn in proportion to the numbers of people being depicted and visualises quantitative evidence with the latest statistics from numerous sources, including the 2010 election, to show the many aspects of the underlying geographical structure of society in the UK. It relates geographies of identity to geographies of inequality, mortality, work, and settlement, and in a final chapter shows how the UK's population fits in to the world picture of who has most of what, and where. Much of the data in this second edition comes from 2010 and 2011. However, because as yet only the age and sex data from the 2011 census has been released, the book shows 2010 patterns where only census data can reveal it. As 2011 census data is released, the author plans to update the maps on-line. The successive 11 chapters are Maps, Birth, Education, Identity, Politics, Inequality, Health, Work, Home, Abroad and Future.
Jacques Cellier et Martine Cocaud, Le traitement des données en histoire et sciences sociales: Méthodes et outils, 2012, Presses universitaires de Rennes, ISBN 9782753520486, 553 pp. L'objectif de cet ouvrage est de concilier théorie et pratique, et fait suite à Traiter des données historiques paru aux Presses universitaires de Rennes en 2010 dont il se veut le prolongement et un complément. L'ambition est d'offrir une panoplie de méthodes, en exposant pour chacune les concepts de base sous-jacents, avec le vocabulaire qui les décrit. Au fil du texte, les auteurs ont choisi de donner des explications aussi simples que possible en reléguant, pour les lecteurs intéressés, dans des « enclos mathématiques » des présentations plus formalisées avec des formules mathématiques. Ils décrivent le type des données que les formules mathématiques traitent et le formatage approprié pour être soumis à un logiciel. Ils présent l'usage pratique détaillé d'un logiciel pour opérer les traitements, et les aides à l'interprétation des résultats. Contrairement aux méthodes présentées dans le premier ouvrage qui pouvaient être mises en œuvre avec des logiciels dits de « bureautique », les méthodes exposées dans ce second tome requièrent des logiciels spécialisés, sinon libres au sens « officiel », mais du moins gratuit. Parfois, le choix s'est imposé « naturellement » : MySQL pour la gestion des bases de données, R pour tous les traitements statistiques abordés dans les parties II et III. Les 16 chapitres sont: 1. Le serveur de données MySQL et son complice PhpMyAdmin ; 2. L’interrogation SQL ; 3. Nuage de points ; 4. Deux ou trois choses à savoir d’R ; 5. Notions de classification ; 6. L’Analyse en Composantes Principales ; 7. L’Analyse des Correspondances Multiples ; 8. La régression logistique ; 9. L’Analyse des Séquences ; 10. Event History Analysis (EHA) ; 11. Introduction à l’Analyse des réseaux ; 12. Pajek, une introduction ; 13. Cohésion ; 14. Centralité ; 15. Rôles et postions – Modélisation par blocs ; 16. Cartographie.
Ronald S. Burt, Neighbor Networks: Competitive Advantage Local and Personal, 2010, Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780199691913, 416 pp. This book, awarded the 2011 George R. Terry Book Award, typifies the Confucian saying "Worry not that no one knows you, seek to be worth knowing." Neighbor Networks examines the cases of analysts, bankers, and managers, and finds that rewards, in fact, do go to people with well-connected colleagues. However, the advantage disappears when an individual's own characteristics are held constant. Well-connected people do not have to affiliate with people who have nothing to offer. This book shows that affiliation with well-connected people adds stability but no advantage to a person's own connections. Advantage is concentrated in people who are themselves well connected and concludes that individuals make a lot of their own network advantage. Personal responsibility emerges as a key theme, but the social is affirmed with an emphasis on individual agency and the social psychology of networks. The research gives new emphasis to Coleman's initial image of social capital as a forcing function for human capital.
Adam J. Berinsky (editor), New Directions in Public Opinion, 2012, Routledge, ISBN 9780415885294, 336 pp. Much of the path-breaking research in the field of public opinion is published in journals, taking up fairly narrow questions one at a time and often requiring advanced statistical knowledge to understand. As a result, the study of public opinion can seem confusing and incoherent to undergraduates. To engage undergraduate students in this area, a new type of textbook such as New Directions in Public Opinion was required. It brings together contributions from leading scholars to provide an accessible and coherent overview of the current state of the field of public opinion research. Each chapter provides a general overview of major new topics and well-established cornerstones of the field.
David Knoke, Economic Networks, 2012, Polity Economy and Society Series, ISBN 9780745649986, 180 pp. Social relations are crucial for understanding diverse economic actions and a network perspective is central to that explanation. Simple exchanges involving money, labor, and commodities combine into complexly connected systems. Economic networks span many levels of analysis, from persons (consumers, employees), to groups (households, work teams), organizations (corporations, interest groups), populations (industries, markets) and the rapidly expanding global economic system. The author brings together network theories from a range of disciplines and empirical studies of domestic and international economies to illuminate how economic activity is embedded in and constrained by social ties among economic actors. Social capital, in the form of connections to others holding valuable resources, is vital for finding a job, buying a car, creating a new industry, or triggering a global financial crisis. In nontechnical terms, the author explicates the core network concepts, measures, and analysis methods behind these phenomena. The book also includes many striking network diagrams to provide visual insights into complex structural patterns.
Diana C. Mutz, Population-Based Survey Experiments, 2011, Princeton University Press, ISBN 9780691144528, 177 pp. Population-based survey experiments have become an invaluable tool for social scientists struggling to generalize laboratory-based results, and for survey researchers besieged by uncertainties about causality. Thanks to technological advances in recent years, experiments can now be administered to random samples of the population to which a theory applies. Yet until now, there was no self-contained resource for social scientists seeking a concise and accessible overview of this methodology, its strengths and weaknesses, and the unique challenges it poses for implementation and analysis. Drawing on examples from across the social sciences, this book covers all the topics a researcher needs to know to plan, implement, and analyze the results of population-based survey experiments. It challenges conventional wisdom about internal and external validity, showing why strong causal claims need not come at the expense of external validity, and how it is now possible to execute experiments remotely using large-scale population samples.
Ann Rudinow Saetnan, Heidi Mork Lomell and Svein Hammer (editors), The Mutual Construction of Statistics and Society, 2011, Routledge, ISBN 9780415811057, 300 pp. Statistics are often seen as simple, straightforward, and objective descriptions of society. However, what we choose to count, what we choose not to count, who does the counting, and the categories and values we choose to apply when counting, matter. This volume addresses the ways in which statistics and numbers are gathered and applied in social science research. The contributors argue that we must become more aware of the power and the limitations of statistics. Learning statistics needs to be about more than simply mastering the techniques of using the tool; it needs to also be about learning the dangers of that tool and learning to control it within social and ethical bounds. These dangers lie in the routines through which statistics are applied; the discourses from which they emerge and into which they are deployed; the power relations created by those discourses; and the assumptions, meanings, and categories statistics carry with them in those discourses.
Wendy Olsen, Data Collection - Key Debates and Methods in Social Research, 2011, Sage Publications, ISBN 9781847872562, 248 pp. This book provides an indispensible introduction to the tools needed for data collection. It uses clear definitions, relevant interdisciplinary examples from around the world and up-to-date suggestions for further reading.
Roy F. Baumeister and Kathleen Vohs (editors), New Directions in Social Psychology (four volume set), 2011, Sage Publications, ISBN 9781446201176, 2,136 pp. This collection picks up from Michael Hogg’s influential set, Social Psychology, published in 2002 to set out and explain the several changes the field has gone through since the mid-nineties. The respective volumes are: I. General Principles, II. Cognition, III. Emotion and Motivation, and IV. Interpersonal Processes.
Peter J. Huber,
Data Analysis. What can be Learned from the Past 50 Years, 2011, Wiley, ISBN 9781118010648, 234 pp. This book explores the many provocative questions concerning the fundamentals of data analysis. It is based on the time-tested experience of one of the specialists in the subject matter. Why should one study data analysis? How should it be taught? What techniques work best, and for whom? How valid are the results? How much data should be tested? Which machine languages should be used, if used at all? Emphasis on apprenticeship (through hands-on case studies) and anecdotes (through real-life applications) are the tools that Huber uses in this volume. Concern with specific statistical techniques is not of immediate value; rather, questions of strategy – when to use which technique – are employed. Central to the discussion is an understanding of the significance of massive (or robust) data sets, the implementation of languages, and the use of models. Each is sprinkled with an ample number of examples and case studies. Personal practices, various pitfalls, and existing controversies are presented when applicable. The book serves as an excellent philosophical and historical companion to any present-day text in data analysis, robust statistics, data mining, statistical learning, or computational statistics.
