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Survey Methodology: An Annotated Bibliography
Communications 801: Spring 2010
Heather Morrison
Instructor: Jan Marontate
Survey Methodology: Annotated Bibliography
Required Readings
Houtkoop-Steenstra, H. (2000). The standardized survey interview. In: Interaction and the standardized survey interview: a living questionnaire (1-16). Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Web copy available through SFU Library.
The author discusses standardized survey interviews techniques (including telephone and face-to-face interviews) and methodological considerations such as construct and response validity, question format and wording and other factors that can influence responses such as response order, and queries whether what others have called interviewer effects may actually be questionnaire effects.
Pomerantz, A. & Zemel, A. (2003) Perspectives and frameworks in interviewers’ queries. In H. van den Berg, M. Wetherell & H. Houtkoop-Steenstra (Eds.), Analyzing Race Talk (pp. 215-231). Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press.
Web copy available through SFU Library.
The authors discuss the impact of differing perspectives and frameworks in interview research, using examples from the interviews on race-related topics on which the discourse analysis studies of this book are framed and research on psychiatric interviews. In brief, the wording of a question tends to imply a particular framework which may impact whether and how a respondent answers; in some cases, interviewees with re-frame a question before answering.
Recommended Readings
Blumenthal, M.M. (2005). Toward an open-source methodology: what we can learn from the blogosphere. Public Opinion Quarterly, 69:5, 655-669.
The author discusses the emerging areas of internet polling and web discussions of survey methodology. Debate about issues such as weighting by party (non-random sampling) has been heated. The idea is raised that automated polling may avoid social desirability bias (people may care less about lying to a machine than a human). Calls for a spirit of innovation and open-source methodology approach to web-based survey methodology.
Carr-Hill, R.A. (1984). Radicalising Survey Methodology. Quality & Quantity 18:3, 275-293.
Carr-Hill takes the perspective that a socialist social statistics does not exist, but should be constructed, examining the possibility of using a current bourgeois tool, the structured questionnaire, to raise consciousness and encourage respondents to critically consider the role of school.
Kim, H., Nakamura, C., Zeng-Treitler, Q. (2009). Assessment of Pictographs Developed Through a Participatory Design Process Using an Online Survey Tool. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 11:1. Retrieved Jan. 22, 2010, from
Discusses the use of an online survey tool to assess the effectiveness of pictographs developed using a qualitative research on patients’ ability to follow medical instructions on discharge from hospital.
Macias, W., Springston, J., Lariscy, R.A.W., & Neustifter, B. (2008). A 13-Year Content Analysis of Survey Methodology in Communication Related Journals. Journal of Current Issues & Research in Advertising, 30:1, 79-94.
The authors report on an extensive survey of surveys reported in communication journals. The survey is the dominant form of research in the social sciences; in communication, this is particularly noticeable in public relations, marketing, public opinion, and mass communication journals. In the past 50 years the telephone interview has been the preferred form, although response rates have been declining due to noncooperation and incoming call screening, leading to research on response facilitation such as offering incentives and follow-up. Web and e-mail based surveys are emerging, but have not been the subject of much research to date.
Sociological Methods & Research: Special Issue on Web Surveys (February
2009).
Van de Mortel, T. (2008).Faking it: social desirability response bias in self-report research.Australian Journal of Advanced Nursing 25(8) 40-48. Retrieved Jan. 23, 2010, from
People like to present a desirable picture of themselves when answering questionnaires, an effect which is called social desirability response. The author reports on a study of over 14 thousand questionnaire studies reported in the nursing database CINAHL, looking at how many using a social desirability scale to test for social desirability effects. Only .2% tested for social desirability; of these, 45% found that social desirability affected their results.