This course gives an introductory overview of the design and implementation of surveys from the initial planning phase to the data preparation as a final step. Topics include survey mode assessment and selection, sampling frames and designs, nonresponse, questionnaire design, cognitive pretesting, assessing measurement errors, and data editing. The course is taught from a Total Survey Error perspective weighing data quality at each step of the process against associated costs.

 

This class is mainly targeted at master and Ph.D. Students that plan on conducting their own surveys.

The course is taught through in-class presentations, group exercises as well as personal tutorial meetings that give participants the opportunity to discuss their own survey designs. Each day we will discuss a specific topic that each focuses on one or more aspects of survey design within the Total Survey Error framework.

 

First, the choice of the survey mode is discussed, and how different ways to sample respondents follow from that choice. On the second day, we focus on the issue of survey nonresponse - how to prevent, analyze, and correct for it. On the third and fourth day, the actual survey content is discussed - how to write survey questions, make sure that they measure what they are intended to measure, test them, and finally, how to assess whether survey data are of good quality. On the final day, we focus on data coding and maximizing quality. We conclude with an overview perspective of all survey errors and their interaction with survey costs.

The course will be applicable to surveys of individuals, households, and organizations in different survey modes: mail, face-to-face, web, and paper-and-pencil surveys.

Please note that this is an introductory course (see also course prerequisites and target group).

 

The full syllabus of the course including the day-to-day schedule will be published here in April.

You will find the course useful if you:

By the end of the course, you will:

The course days contain four hours of classroom instruction and two hours of tutored individual and group exercises, during which the instructors are available for support. The lectures will include a mix of frontal teaching, short exercises, and question-based discussions. The exercises will take place in the GESIS open study areas in the afternoon and are usually based on group work. There is no obligatory exercise planned for the last afternoon.