The Practice of Survey Research: Theory and Applications

Unique in its integration of theory and application, The Practice of Survey Research explains survey design, implementation, data analysis, and continuing data management, including how to effectively incorporate the latest technology (e.g., SurveyMonkey and Qualtrics). Data management and analysis are demonstrated and explained through statistical software including SPSS, SAS, and STATA. In addition to helping students develop a complete understanding of survey research from start to finish, authors Erin E. Ruel, William E. Wagner, III, and Brian Joseph Gillespie also address the challenges and issues of specific disciplines.

Erin Ruel is associate professor of sociology and director of graduate studies at Georgia State University in Atlanta, GA. She received her PhD in sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2003. In 2003, Erin took a postdoctoral position at the University of Wisconsin Madison in the Center for Demography of Health and Aging. While there, she continued to hone her survey research skills on the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study. Soon after arriving in Atlanta to take an assistant professor position at Georgia State University (GSU) in 2005, she began the Urban Health Initiative, a longitudinal survey study of public housing residents facing involuntary relocation with GSU colleagues. Erin was principal investigator of the National Institutes of Health study on the health outcomes of relocated public housing residents and co-investigator on two National Science Foundation grants, examining social disorganization and social support for public housing residents. She employs quantitative and mixed methods to examine health disparities and the health consequences of racial residential segregation, neighborhood disadvantage, housing, and socioeconomic status. Ruel has published in numerous journals, including Demography, Social Forces, Social Science Research, Health and Place, Journal of Housing Studies, Cities, Sociology Compass, Journal of Adolescent Health, and Journal of Urban Health.

William E. Wagner, III, PhD, is Professor of Sociology at California State University-Channel Islands where he teaches courses in statistics and research methods. He has published research on topics such as urban sociology, sports, homophobia, and academic status. He is co-author of Adventures in Social Research, 10E (SAGE, 2018), The Practice of Survey Research (SAGE, 2016), and ?A Guide to R for Social and Behavioral Sciences ?(SAGE, 2020) and author of Using IBM® SPSS® Statistics for Research Methods and Social Science Statistics (2019).

Brian Joseph Gillespie, Ph.D. is a researcher in the Faculty of Spatial Sciences at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. He is the author of Household Mobility in America: Patterns, Processes, and Outcomes (Palgrave, 2017) and coauthor of The Practice of Survey Research: Theory and Applications (Sage, 2016) and Using and Interpreting Statistics in the Social, Behavioral, and Health Sciences (Sage, 2018). He has also published research in a variety of social science journals on topics related to family, migration, the life course, and interpersonal relationships.