Social Survey Research III:

1
Lecture 5.

• Social Survey Research III
• Other Techniques Of Quantitative Data Collection
  And Generation Secondary Data, Experiments And
  Social Indicators
• Leah Wild

2
Overview

• Questionnaire Design Response Format
• Pilot Questionnaires
• Using Existing Sets of Questions Secondary Data
  Sets
• Data Collection and Experimental Design
• Social Indicators
• Society at a Glance OECD Social Indicators 2002
  Study
• BCS

3
Questionnaire Design Response Format Intensity
scales. A good way of writing closed-ended
questionnaire items is to measure peoples
attitudes and opinions with intensity scales. A
commonly used one is the Likert scale, a scaling
technique designed by Rensis Likert in 1932. It
typically makes use of a 1 to 5 rating scale
where 1 is strongly agree, 2 is somewhat
agree, 3 is neutral, 4 is somewhat
disagree and 5 is strongly disagree
4
Pilot Questionnaires And Interview Schedules

• Clarity Check
• Adequacy of Instructions Check
• Gain Experience In Asking Questions (i.e.
  Interview Schedules)

5
Secondary Data.

• secondary data as any information that has not
  been generated personally (first-hand) by the
  researcher who uses it.
• highly quantified sources -statistics
• to the more qualitative -personal documents and
  diaries, government and business reports and the
  mass media.
• can be contemporary or historical.
• saving of time, money and effort.
• use of secondary sources may be a necessity if
  historical and / or comparative research is being
  carried-out.

6
Problems with Secondary Data

• Authenticity
• Credibility
• Representativeness
• Meaning (literal and metaphorical)
• Purpose
• (Scott 1990. Documents in Social Research
  Social Studies Review, 1990)

7
Reasons to Use Secondary Data.

• Availability.
• Examination of trends / changes over time.
• Comparisons.
• Before" and "after" studies.
• (Bilton et al 1997)

8
USING META-DATA.

• Traditionally
• metadata has been understood as Data about Data
  - an integral part of the dataset.
• Metadata can include such items as
• Questionnaires
• a keyword list of names and items
• a record of how the data were collected
• an inventory of related data and publications
• information on principal investigators
• geographical coverage.
• Metadata is important as it provides essential
  information on the use and interpretation of
  information contained in a data file. It outlines
  what datasets are available, where they can be
  found, what format they are in, how they should
  be used, and can provide a permanent record in
  catalogues and search facilities of the resources
  that are available.

9
Data Collection Secondary Data Sets

• British Household Panel Survey (longitudinal)
• 5,500 Households,
• 10,000 Individual interviewees
• 75 response rate
• Focus is on social and economic change at
  individual and household level
• Topics include
• Income
• Employment
• Housing
• health
• Attitudes.

10
Labour Force Survey

• 1973 Onwards
• Up to 60,000 households
• 80 response rate
• Topics include
• Employment
• Education and Training,
• Health and Disabilities

11
General Household Survey

• Annual since 1971 (except 97-98 and 99-00)
• 10,000 households, 25,000 people
• 72 response rate
• Topics include
• household and family information
• housing tenure and household accommodation
• consumer durables including vehicle ownership
• employment
• education
• health and use of health services
• smoking and drinking
• family information including marriage,
  cohabitation and fertility
• income
• demographic information about household members
  including migration.

12
British Crime survey

• a 'victimisation' survey,
• experiences of property crimes and personal
  crimes
• provides a record of the experience of crime
• unaffected by variations in the behaviour of
  victims about reporting
• Unaffected by variations in police
  procedure/practice
• Between 1982- 2001 biennial. From 2001 annual.
• Target population All households in England and
  Wales
• Sampling unit People aged 16 or over living in
  private household.
• Design/selection of sample Stratified random
  sample of postcode sectors. One quarter sector
  selected at random. Interviews conducted at
  address
• Size20,000 respondents in BCS (2000) core
  sample, plus 4,000 ethnic minority booster
  sample.
• Enlarged sample size in 2001. 40,000 core sample
• Core crime counting questions remain unchanged
  since first sweep (1982). Other questions asked
  on ad hoc basis. Moved to CAPI /CASI 1994.

13
Data Collection and Experimental Design

• When interested in understanding how the
  manipulation of a variable can explain specific
  outcomes on another variable, experiments can
  also be used.
• Experimental Group
• Some treatment is conducted on the subjects of
  the experimental group and measures its effects
  in comparison to another group.
• Control Group
• Control group might not receive any treatment or
  it might receive a different kind of treatment

14
Social Indicators

• Society At A Glance OECD Social Indicators 2002
  Study
• Context Indicators illustrate national
  differences in social trends and social status
• Response Indicators. Four areas of social policy
  have been operationalised
• Self-sufficiency
• Equity
• Health
• Social Cohesion

15

• UK official statistics www.statistics.gov.uk
• UN statistics www.un.org/depts/unsd/global.htm
• OECD statistics www.oecd.org/statistics
• EU statistics europa.eu.int/comm/eurostat/