Full presentations of many of the entries below have already been distributed to BMS subscribers and RC33 members over the BMS-RC33 distribution list
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Sabine Häder, Michael Häder and Mike Kühne (editors), Telephone Surveys in Europe: Research and Practice, 2012, Springer, ISBN 9783642254116, 326 pp. This edited volume offers suggestions and advice on how to conduct surveys, addresses the challenge so-called “mobile-only” households for survey research and examines the optimal sample allocation, costs and benefits. Telephone surveying is the most often applied mode of data collection in Europe. That implies a need for methodological knowledge on this topic. However, technical conditions are changing rapidly and the challenge for survey researchers to stay up-to-date is immense. For instance, landline and mobile phone coverage have changed extremely in recent years. Along with the rising number of so-called “mobile-only” respondents, this particular field of telephone survey research becomes more and more important. The authors thus concentrate on the latest developments and trends in landline and mobile phone surveys in Europe. This book is intended for scientists and practitioners who deal with theory and application of telephone surveys in academic and market research. It is also a valuable reader for students who are interested in survey methodology. It covers Russia, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Finland, Great Britain, Italy, Portugal in Part I. Part II concerns “Sampling for Telephone Surveys” and Part III, “Weighting and Nonresponse”. “Data Quality” is the subject of Part IV, and “Recommendations for Telephone Surveys” of Part V.
Peter K. Enns and Christopher Wlezien (editors), Who Gets Represented?, 2012, Russell Sage, ISBN 9780871542427, 386 pp. This edited volume investigates the policy preferences in the US and how group opinion affects political representation. While it is often assumed that policymakers favor the interests of some citizens at the expense of others, it is not always evident when and how groups’ interests differ, or what it means when they do. This work challenges the usual assumption that the preferences of any one group – women, African Americans, or the middle class – are incompatible with the preferences of other groups. The book analyzes differences across income, education, racial, and partisan groups and investigates whether or not and how differences in group opinion matter with regard to political representation. Part I examines opinions among social and racial groups. Relying on an innovative matching technique, Marisa Abrajano and Keith Poole link respondents in different surveys to show that racial and ethnic groups do not, as previously thought, predictably embrace similar attitudes about social welfare. Katherine Cramer Walsh finds that, although preferences on health care policy and government intervention are often surprisingly similar across class lines, different income groups can maintain the same policy preferences for different reasons. Part II concerns how group interests translate into policy outcomes, with a focus on differences in representation between income groups. James Druckman and Lawrence Jacobs analyze Ronald Reagan’s response to private polling data during his presidency and show how different electorally significant groups – Republicans, the wealthy, religious conservatives – wielded disproportionate influence on Reagan’s policy positions. Christopher Wlezien and Stuart Soroka show that politicians’ responsiveness to the preferences of constituents within different income groups can be surprisingly even-handed. Analyzing data from 1876 to the present, Wesley Hussey and John Zaller focus on the important role of political parties, vis-à-vis constituents’ preferences, for legislators’ behavior. This work questions several long-held assumptions, among them the growing conventional wisdom that income plays in American politics and the assumption that certain groups will always – or will never – have common interests. Similarities among group opinions are as significant as differences for understanding political representation.
Samuel Salzborn, Eldad Davidov and Jost Reinecke (editors), Methods, Theories, and Empirical Applications in the Social Sciences. Festschrift for Peter Schmidt, 2012, Springer, ISBN 9783531188980, 351pp. This volume addresses major features in empirical social research from methodological and theoretical perspectives. Prominent researchers discuss central problems in empirical social research in a theory-driven way from political science, sociological or social-psychological points of view. These contributions focus on a renewed discussion of fundamentals, together with innovative and open research questions or interdisciplinary research perspectives. The chapters include: Samuel Salzborn, Eldad Davidov, and Jost Reinecke, “Introduction”; Jost Reinecke, “Mixture Models for Longitudinal Analysis – Applications of Adolescents’ Development of Delinquency”; Uli Wagner, Gunnar Lemmer, Judith Lanphen et al., “Politics, Evidence, Treatment, Evaluation, Responsibility – The Models PETER and PETER-S”; Icek Ajzen, “Values, Attitudes, and Behavior”; and Shalom Schwartz, “Toward Refining the Theory of Basic Human Values”.
Samuel J. Best and Brian S. Krueger, Exit Polls: Surveying the American Electorate, 1972-2010, 2012, CQ Press, ISBN: 9781608717415, 448 pp. Every two years, exit polls become the most widely analyzed, written about, and discussed data set in the United States. Although exit polls are known for their use in predicting elections, they are in fact the best tool for explaining election results. Exit polls are taken from actual voters, whereas pre-election polls that tally people’s intended votes tend to overstate the number of people who will actually go to the polls. This volume is a new reference work that explores the trends in longitudinal variables present in the national Election Day exit polls from their beginning in 1972 to the present. The book documents comparable survey items that have appeared in multiple exit polls over time. The authors are both election commentators for CBS news and statistical experts. Here they present more than 100 tables and 100 figures showing the changes in the American electorate and its voting patterns over time. This work represents one of the first times exit poll data has been combined to show trends over time. The five chapters are: “The Exit Poll Phenomenon” which provides a brief history of exit polls and chronicles; “Creating and Using Exit Poll Time Series” which describes how individual exit polls were compiled into a cumulative data file; “Composition of Voters in Federal Elections” focuses on changes in the demographic and ideological composition of the electorate over almost forty years; “The Presidential Voting Preferences of the Active Electorate” examines the presidential voting patterns of the various groups; and “The Congressional Voting Preferences of the Active Electorate” examines the congressional voting patterns of the various groups that make up the American electorate from 1972 to 2010.
Lesley Andres, Designing and Doing Survey Research, 2012, Sage, ISBN 9781849208130, 208 pp. This volume is an introduction to the processes and methods of planning and conducting survey research. It provides step-by-step guidance on: designing research; ethical issues; developing survey questions; sampling; budgeting, scheduling and managing time; administering a survey; and preparing for data analysis. It focuses on the impact of new technologies, provides a cutting-edge look at how survey research is conducted today and addresses the challenges survey researchers face. It uses international examples from various social science disciplines, and would be a good book for students and researchers new to survey research.
Lior Gideon (editor), Handbook of Survey Methodology for the Social Sciences, 2012, Springer, ISBN 9781461438762, 520 pp. This edited volume is a comprehensive overview of survey methodology in the social sciences. It goes from survey design, to data collection, to result analysis. Surveys enjoy great ubiquity among data collection methods in social research. They are flexible in questioning techniques, in the amount of questions asked, in the topics covered, and in the various types of interaction with respondents. Surveys are also the preferred method of many researchers in the social sciences due to their ability to provide quick profiles and results. Because they are so commonly used and fairly easy to administer, surveys are often thought to be easily thrown together. But designing an effective survey that yields reliable and valid results takes more than merely asking questions and waiting for the answers to arrive. This works is geared to the non-statistician and addresses issues throughout all phases of survey design and implementation. Chapters examine the major survey methods of data collection, and provide expert guidelines for asking targeted questions, and for improving accuracy and quality of responses while reducing sampling and non-sampling bias. Relying on the Total Survey Error theory, various issues of both sampling and non-sampling sources of error are explored and discussed. By covering all aspects of the topic, the Handbook is suited to readers taking their first steps in survey methodology, as well as to those already involved in survey design and execution, and to those currently in training.
Mihai C. Bocarnea, Rodney A. Reynolds and Jason D. Baker, Online Instruments, Data Collection, and Electronic Measurements: Organizational Advancements, 2012, IGI Global, ISBN 9781466621725, 397 pp. One of the great rewards to continuously advancing technology is an increased ease and precision in organizational techniques. Online data collection and online instruments are vital ways to electronically measure and assess organizational areas relevant to management, leadership, and human research development. This work aims to assist researchers in both understanding and utilizing online data collection by providing methodological knowledge related to online research, and by presenting information about the empirical quality, the availability, and the location of specific online instruments. It provides a strong focus on organizational leadership instruments while combining them with practical and ethical issues associated with online data collection. Such a combination makes this an important contribution to the field. Its 19 chapters are: 1.The Use of E-Questionnaires in Organizational Surveys; 2. The Use of Mixed Methods in Organizational Communication Research; 3. Online Research and Obtaining Human Subjects/IRB Approvals; 4. The Nonprofit Ethics Survey: Assessing Organizational Culture and Climate; 5. Analysis and Use of the Life Styles Inventory 1 and 2 by Human Synergistics International; 6. Leadership Behavior Description Questionnaire; 7. Self-Monitoring Scale; 8. On Measurement Instruments for Fatalism; 9. A Cross-Cultural Measure of Servant Leadership Behaviors; 10. Seven Scales to Measure the Seven Beatitudes in Leaders; 11. Inventory of Leader Sternness (ILS); 12. The Shepherd Leadership Inventory (SLI); 13. Development of the Leader Integrity Assessment; 14. Measuring Followership; 15. An Online Measure of Discernment; 16. The Inventory of Learner Persistence; 17. The Mutual Influence of Technology and Leadership Behaviors; 18. Preferred Features of Course Management Systems in Post Secondary and Corporate Online Learning; and 19. Online Survey Software.
