How To Design Survey Studies

by Arlene Fink

"This book lays out the essential information about commonly used designs for the reader. The presentation of extremely complicated and technical information is excellent. The exercises are very valuable to use in the classroom as they will help to reinforce the learning of design principles." --Kathleen Sexton-Radek, Elmhurst College Which survey design should you select and use for your survey? For what purpose do you want to use your survey---to describe, compare, or predict attitudes, knowledge or behavior? In this book, the author provides lots of examples and explanations of the major features of high-quality survey systems. Guidelines are provided for experimental and observational designs of surveys, as well as for cross-sectional, cohort and case-control designs. In addition, the author provides checklists of risks to avoid for internal and external validity of a design. New to this edition is coverage of descriptive and experimental factorial designs.

97 pages, Paperback

First published October 22, 2002

About the author

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 literature reviews and 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 Prevention Secondaire en Addictologie (IPPSA) in 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 135 peer-reviewed articles and 15 textbooks.