A survey can be looked upon as a process or series of survey operations. The design of each operation has the potential to affect the total quality of the survey results. In this workshop, we focus on a couple of design choices.
The first is the way in which individuals are selected to the survey. The options are many and range from advertising the survey in a Facebook group, to using a commercial web panel, or selecting a traditional probability sample from a register. Different methods have different strengths and weaknesses, and the choice can have great significance for the quality and credibility of the survey results.
The second design choice of interest here is the strategy for dealing with nonresponse - both preventively and when nonresponse has arisen. Nonresponse is large in many surveys and can seriously bias the results. We will have a look in the methodological toolbox and introduce some possible approaches to the problem.
The workshop is designed for doctoral students, researchers, and faculty members from all disciplines within SLU who are interested in questionnaire surveys. The presentation will be non-technical and no special prior knowledge is required. Theoretical reasoning will be interspersed with practical examples.
Upon completion of this workshop, participants will have a deeper understanding of:
- different aspects of the quality of a survey,
- the difference between a probabilistic and a nonprobabilistic sampling design, and
- the importance of nonresponse and ways to deal with it in the survey process.
