Chapter 10  / Survey Instrumentation Web Resources

General References

What Is a Survey?

According the Fritz Scheuren, who edited this edition of a booklet originally created by the American Statistical Association, “What is a Survey” is “designed to promote a better understanding of what is involved in carrying out sample surveys – especially those aspects that have to be taken into account in evaluating the results of surveys.” Of particular relevance to survey instrumentation are chapters on designing a questionnaire, how to conduct pretesting, and mail surveys.

	Best Practices for Survey and Public Opinion Research
	This page from the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) offers a detailed list of standards or criteria for conducting high quality surveys. This is a good check list for anyone doing survey research.

	Survey Design
	This chapter from The Survey System’s Tutorial, which is intended primarily for those who are new to survey research, discusses options and provides suggestions on how to design and conduct a successful survey. The section on Questionnaire Design offers numerous helpful tips on question wording, order, and other considerations.

	Survey and Questionnaire Design
	A free tutorial from StatPac Inc., this site offers brief but informative guides that address several design issues, including question wording, question order, questionnaire length, and the advantages and disadvantages of questionnaires.

Major Surveys and Opinion Polls

Existing surveys are an important source of questions in creating a survey instrument. Below are some links to question sources.

	PollingReport.com
	This site is an excellent, nonpartisan resource on trends in American public opinion. Users can click on a wide range of subject areas to find the exact questions and polling results from national surveys.

	Public Opinion Matters
	This page from the Roper Center contains a list of topics linked to a sampling of questions that are stored in the Center’s archive. The archive contains survey questions and results from academic, commercial, and media survey organizations such as the GSS, Pew Research Center, Yankelovich Research Partners, and Wall Street Journal.

	General Social Survey (GSS)
	The home site of the GSS contains information about the project and links to the GSS Codebook and data.  The Codebook is a rich source of questions on background variables, attitudes, opinions, and various social indicators.

	Public Opinion Surveys
	Part of the Cornell Institute for Social and Economic Research, this page contains an annotated list of online sites for opinion polls and surveys. The sites provide various resources, including survey questions, datasets, and full-text reports.

On Survey Methodology

	Journal of Official Statistics
	This site contains a complete archive of articles from the Journal of Official Statistics, an important source of research on survey methodology and theory.