Synopses & Reviews
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.
Review
"Will prove to be a great value to marketing research methodologists. Not only is the content there, but it is well written. I highly recommAnd Thinking About Answers to all who are seriously concerned with improving their use of survey method and questionnaire design. It belongs in the library of all serious researchers."
"For students and practitioners of survey research, this text provides a broad theoretical discussion of the survey process (as social encounter and cognitive task) and the difficulties respondents may have when attempting to provide answers."
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.
Synopsis
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.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 269-293) and indexes.
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).
Table of Contents
1. Introduction.
2. Methods for Determining Cognitive Processes and Questionnaire Problems.
3. Answering a Survey Question: Cognitive and Communicative Processes.
4. Psychological Sources of Context Effects in Survey Measurement.
5. The Direction of Context Effects: What Determines Assimilation or Contrast in Attitude Measurement.
6. Order Effects Within a Question: Presenting Categorical Response Alternatives.
7. Autobiographical Memory.
8. Event Dating.
9. Counting and Estimation.
10. Proxy Reporting.
11. Implications for Questionnaire Design and the Conceptualization of the Survey Interview.