New from Heuristic Books in 2004:

Questionnaires--Practical Hints on How to Avoid Mistakes in Design and Interpretation--By T.L.Brink, PhD, MBA (2004)

Buy this book before you implement that expensive survey!

 

 

Table of Contents

Contents
Section One: Errors in Initial Approach and Conceptualization 1
Chapter 1: Do we really need to do a questionnaire? 3
Gut feelings are not science 4
Don't start measuring until you know what you need to measure 5
Don't overlook the ease of archival data 7
Chapter 2: How precisely do we need to measure? 11
Distinguishing constants, variables and operational definitions 12
Use the right scale for precision 14
Chapter 3: Reliability and validity: how much to worry 19
Consistency of measurement 21
Going after the wrong variable 25
Overlooking confounding variables 29
The error of aggregation 31
Assuming validation before research is done 32
The temptation of the shortened scale 38
Careless responses 40
Chapter 4: How to prove it: the four basic designs 43
Sample vs. Norms 48
Correlational 51
Separate groups 52
Repeated Measures 53
Section Two: Errors in Sampling and Administration 65
Chapter 5: Is the sample good enough? 67
Too small? Or worth getting more? 69
Representative enough? 73
Grouping: experiment? Quasi-experiment? Survey? 80
Ethical compromises and sampling. 83
Chapter 6: Administering the questionnaire 87
Group administration 89
Face-to-face, one-on-one 90
Telephone 94
Mailouts 97
Email and web-site 101
Branching questions 103
Dangers of creating expectations 105
Excessive length 106
Section Three: Errors in Phrasing 111
Chapter 7: stem patterns to avoid 113
Vagueness 115
Excessive precision 123
Changes from national poll 126
Changes from previous administration 129
Loaded questions 130
False spectrum of one variable 132
Chapter 8: response formats to avoid 141
Open ended 143
Vague 145
Horizontal line 148
Wrong end of scale 151
Sensitive questions 154
Overlapping categories 155
Inadequate categories 156
Improper use of numbers 158
Columns 161
Number of desired responses 165
Composite scoring 167
Percent distribution 168
Chapter 9: suggestions on how to measure specific variables 171
Job 173
Marital status 177
Parenthood 179
Age 181
Ethnicity 184
Religion 186
Education 188
Preference 189
Sexual orientation 191
Section Four: Errors after the data come in 193
Chapter 10: coding errors 195
Aggregates only 197
Rounding up 199
Elimination of subjects 200
Digitizing nominal and ordinal data 203
Perils of partial data 204
Chapter 11: statistical errors 207
Means 209
Standard Deviations 213
Miscalculating percents 214
Misinterpreting Correlations 219
Using inferential statistics incorrectly 230
One tail or two tail 232
Size effect 233
Chapter 12: errors in interpretation, reporting, and presentation 235
Terminology and inference 237
charts, graphs and tables 249
The write up 254
 

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last modified March 26, 2004