Survey Research Methods

The Fourth Edition of the bestselling Survey Research Methods presents the very latest methodological knowledge on surveys. Author Floyd J. Fowler Jr. provides students and researchers who want to collect, analyze, or read about survey data with a sound basis for evaluating how each aspect of a survey can affect its precision, accuracy, and credibility.

The Fourth Edition has been updated in four primary ways: it much more prominently addresses the growth of the Internet for data collection and the subsequent rapid expansion of online survey usage; it addresses the precipitous drop in response rates for telephone surveys, particularly those based on random-digit dialing; it offers new and expanded coverage monitoring the continued improvement in techniques for presurvey evaluation of questions; and it addresses the growing role of individual cell phone in addition - and often instead of - household landlines. Two new chapters, "The Nature of Error in Surveys" and "Issues in Analyzing Survey Data," further emphasize the importance of minimizing nonsampling errors through superior question design, quality interviewing, and high response rates.

Key Features

• Covers the expansion of cell phone use and legislation regarding them; this offers survey researchers guidance as to policy implications and practical application 
• Expands the coverage of web-based and online surveys as well as the latest resources available to the beginning and expert researcher 
  Offers in-depth discussion of non-response and sample size issues, especially as they relate to power
• Focuses on data analysis, especially with regard to bivariate and multivariate approaches. Fowler walks students and researchers through the various types of analyses one would do once the data are ready to analyze. Provides a list of strengths and weaknesses for each of the different types of survey data collection, including the more recent web-based approaches
• Includes updated references and survey examples that offer various levels of students and researchers other exemplary literature and models
  

Survey Research Methods, Fourth Edition gives compact, yet comprehensive coverage, making it an ideal companion or beginning text.

Praise for Floyd J. Fowler, Jr. and the previous edition:

"Fowler is smart, straightforward, and sensible in writing about research methodology. Students have a lot to gain from his wisdom and experience."
―Mark Berends, Vanderbilt University

Floyd J. Fowler, Jr. is a graduate of Wesleyan University and received a PhD from the University of Michigan in 1966. A Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Survey Research at the University of Massachusetts Boston since 1971, he was Director of the Center for 14 years. Dr. Fowler is the author or co-author of four textbooks on survey methods, including Survey Research Methods, Improving Survey Questions, Standardized Survey Interviewing (with Mangione), and Survey Methodology (with Groves, Couper, Lepkowski, et. al), as well as numerous research papers and monographs. His recent work has focused on studies of question design and evaluation techniques and applying survey methods to studies of medical care.