How to Conduct Surveys: A Step-by-Step Guide

The Fourth Edition of this book shares the same goal as the previous editions: to guide readers to developing their own rigorous surveys and to evaluate the credibility of other ones. This new edition continues to give practical step-by-step advice on how to achieve the goal. Written in the same clear and accessible style as her other works, author Arlene Fink has completely revised this edition to reflect changes in the way people prepare surveys, use them with the public, and report the results.

Key Features

• Covers new content, including a section on the internal and external validity of research designs
•  Reflects changes in the way people prepare surveys, use them with the public, and report the results with increased emphasis on online surveys 
• Presents a new section that appears throughout the book call Making the Decision that help the reader make informed choices by offering guidance in choosing survey types, question types, sampling strategies, research designs, and data analytic methods
• Includes a new end of chapter feature called Summing Up sections to make sure the reader understands the most important concepts 
• Offers a completely revised data analysis chapter to take into account the availability of statistical programs with a new section on analyzing qualitative data from open ended questions
• Provides a new section on internal and external validity of research designs with more information on Likert scales, cross tabs and downloading data from online surveys 
• Gives readers links to exemplary “surveys in practice” 
• Contains fully updated examples and references

Praise for How to Conduct Surveys, Fourth Edition

“The book is extremely well organized and covers the broad subjects necessary to successfully design, test, administer, analyze, and report a survey.”                                                       
-R. Steven Daniels, California State University, Bakersfield

 

Arlene Fink (Ph.D.) is Professor of Medicine and Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles and President of the Langley Research Institute. Her main interests include evaluation and survey research and the conduct of research literature reviews as well as the evaluation of their quality. Dr. Fink has conducted scores of evaluation studies in public health, medicine and education. She is on the faculty of UCLA’s Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program and is a scientific and evaluation advisor to UCLA’s Gambling Studies and IMPACT (Improving Access, Counseling & Treatment for Californians with Prostate Cancer) programs. She consults nationally and internationally for agencies such as L’institut de Promotion del la Prévention Secondaire en Addictologie (IPPSA) Paris, France and Peninsula Health in Victoria, Australia. Professor Fink has taught and lectured extensively all over the world and is the author of over 130 peer-reviewed articles and 15 textbooks.