Thinking About Answers: The Application of Cognitive Processes to Survey Methodology (Research Methods for the Social Sciences) - Hardcover

Seymour Sudman; Norman Bradburn; Norbert Schwarz

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0787901202 ISBN 13: 9780787901202

Publisher: Jossey-Bass, 1995

Synopsis

In this important book, the authors explore what answers mean in relation to how people understand the world around them and communicate with one another. They offer practical and theoretical insights that will prove invaluable when developing questionnaires.

About this title

About the Author

SEYMOUR SUDMAN is a Walter H. Stellner Distinguished Professor of Marketing and deputy director and research professor at the Survey Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He is the author, coauthor, or editor of seventeen books including Asking Questions (Jossey-Bass, 1982) which he wrote with Norman M. Bradburn.

NORMAN M. BRADBURN is senior vice president for National Opinion Research. He is the Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service professor in the department of psychology and the Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago.

NORBERT SCHWARZ is professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and a research scientist at the survey research center of Michigan's Institute for Social Research. With Seymour Sudman he wrote Context Effects in Social and Psychological Research (1992), Autobiographical Memory and the Validity of Retrospective Reports (1994).

From the Back Cover

In 1982, Jossey-Bass published the classic book Asking Questions--a comprehensive guide written for anyone who uses questionnaires to gather information about people's attitudes and behavior. Now, the coauthor of this landmark book, Seymour Sudman, has teamed up with Norman M. Bradburn and Norbert Schwarz--renowned experts in survey methodology--to write Thinking About Answers.The editors explore what answers mean and how people understand the world around them and communicate with one another. Thinking About Answers is a blAnd of methods research and cognitive psychology and an invaluable resource for practitioners and students of survey research, cognitive and methodology researchers, and students in methods or cognitive psychology classes.

From the Inside Flap

Renowned experts in survey methodology Seymour Sudman, Norman M. Bradburn, and Norbert Schwarz have come together to write Thinking About Answers, an essential resource book filled with practical and theoretical insights that will prove invaluable when developing questionnaires. In this important book, the authors explore what answers mean in relation to how people understand the world around them and communicate with one another. Thinking About Answers uses the most current insights from research on survey methods and cognitive psychology. The authors present the survey as a social conversation and investigate and document the meanings of the answers respondents give to researchers. Thinking About Answers offers new and significant advances in understanding survey research, including information on:

• how respondents understand questions, search their memories for relevant information, form judgments, and edit their answers
• the various theories on the storage and retrieval of "autobiographical memory"
• guidelines for alerting researchers on how context can influence the question-answering process to produce different results
• how the response alternatives offered to respondents affect the answers given
• strategies respondents use to make estimates
• how respondents report on their own behavior or the behavior of others
• and much more.

Thinking About Answers is an invaluable resource for practitioners and students of survey research, cognitive and methodology researchers, and students in methods or cognitive psychology classes.

Edition details

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0787901202
• ISBN 13: 9780787901202
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304