Product Description

A nuts-and-bolts guide to conducting your own professional-quality surveys without paying professional fees. How can you gauge public support for a cause or test the market for a product or service? What are the best methods for validating opinions for use in a paper or dissertation? A well-documented survey is the answer. But what if you don’t have thousands of dollars to commission one? No problem. How to Conduct Your Own Survey gives you everything you need to do it yourself! Without any prior training, you can learn expert techniques for conducting accurate, low-cost surveys. In step-by-step, down-to-earth language, Priscilla Salant and Don A. Dillman give you the tools you need to:

• Determine which type of survey is best for you
• Estimate the cost of your survey
• Conduct mail, telephone, and face-to-face surveys
• Draw accurate samples
• Write effective questionnaires
• Compile and report results
• Avoid common survey errors
• Find reliable outside assistance
• And much more

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #66847 in Books
• Published on: 1994-10-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

From the Back Cover
A nuts-and-bolts guide to conducting your own professional-quality surveys without paying professional fees. How can you gauge public support for a cause or test the market for a product or service? What are the best methods for validating opinions for use in a paper or dissertation? A well-documented survey is the answer. But what if you don’t have thousands of dollars to commission one? No problem. How to Conduct Your Own Survey gives you everything you need to do it yourself! Without any prior training, you can learn expert techniques for conducting accurate, low-cost surveys. In step-by-step, down-to-earth language, Priscilla Salant and Don A. Dillman give you the tools you need to:

• Determine which type of survey is best for you
• Estimate the cost of your survey
• Conduct mail, telephone, and face-to-face surveys
• Draw accurate samples
• Write effective questionnaires
• Compile and report results
• Avoid common survey errors
• Find reliable outside assistance
• And much more

About the Author
PRISCILLA SALANT, M.A., is an Associate in Research at Washington State University. She provides research assistance to public and private nonprofit organizations and is the author of A Community Researcher’s Guide to Rural Data. DON A. DILLMAN, Ph.D., is a Senior Survey Methodologist at the U.S. Bureau of the Census and Director of the Social and Economic Sciences Research Center at Washington State University. He is the author of the professional book, Mail and Telephone Surveys, also available from Wiley.

Customer Reviews

Outdated
This book was published in 1994, prior to the internet boom. It covers telephone, mail, and face-to-face surveys. It doesn't cover email surveys or internet-based surveys. It also fails to mention scaling or data-types. If you're looking for ideas on questions, or are concerned about sampling techniques, you'll find some info here. This is one of those "partial references": it covers some things, but leaves enough out that you'll need to buy another reference to compliment it. If you're looking for the latest in survey methodology, this book doesn't have it.

Excellent research into survey methodology!
I'm currently finishing up my MA thesis, and I could not have built a stronger framework for the survey part of my work without Salant's book! The ideas are fresh, tested, and accurate. An excellent book for anyone who wants to conduct a survey and get reliable results.

Accessible volume by one of the best
Dillman's "total design method" is well illustrated in this volume. This work is an accessible introduction to designing one's own survey. The book is written pretty well, too.

Trying to get accurate results is what survey design is all about. This book emphasizes that and then runs through the process, step-by-step.

The book deals with some of the key issues in survey design: (a) what type of survey method (face-to-face, mail, phone), (b) sample selection, (c) construction of questions and the total questionnaire, (d) the logistics of administering the survey, (e) data analysis, (f) reporting the results.

The work concludes with a title that says it all: "Advice, Resources, and Maintaining Perspective."

All in all, a useful and accessible introduction to survey research and how to minimize errors.