Conversations at random: survey research as interviewers see it

Converse, Jean M.

Reference

wiley

Hardly an American today escapes being polled or surveyed or sampled. In this illuminating history, Jean Converse shows how survey research came to be perhaps the single most important development in twentieth-century social science. Everyone interested in survey methods and public opinion, including social scientists in many fi elds, will find this volume a major resource. 
Converse traces the beginnings of survey research in the practical worlds of politics and business, where elite groups sought information so as to infl uence mass democratic publics and markets. During the Depression and World War II, the federal government played a major role in developing surveys on a national scale. In the 1940s certain key individuals with academic connections and experience in polling, business, or government research brought surveys into academic life. By the 1960s, what was initially viewed with suspicion had achieved a measure of scientific acceptance of survey research. 
The author draws upon a wealth of material in archives, interviews, and published work to trace the origins of the early organizations (the Bureau of Applied Social Research, the National Opinion Research Center, and the Survey Research Center of Michigan), and to capture the perspectives of front-line fi gures such as Paul Lazarsfeld, George Gallup, Elmo Roper, and Rensis Likert. She writes with sensitivity and style, revealing how academic survey research, along with its commercial and political cousins, came of age in the United States. 
Jean M. Converse was the director of the Detroit Area Study at the University of Michigan. She is the author of Conversations at Random: Survey Research as Interviewers See It and Survey Questions: Handcrafting the Standardized Questionnaire.

Survey Research in the United States: Roots and Emergence 1890-1960

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Univ. Of California Pr.

Survey Questions is a highly readable guide to the principles of writing survey questions. The authors review recent research on survey questions, consider the lore of professional experience and finally present those findings which have the strongest implications on writing these questions.

Survey Questions: Handcrafting the Standardized Questionnaire (Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences)

Presser, Stanley

Sage Publications, Inc.

History

Americas

Routledge

Hardly an American today escapes being polled or surveyed or sampled. In this illuminating history, Jean Converse shows how survey research came to be perhaps the single most important development in twentieth-century social science. Everyone interested in survey methods and public opinion, including social scientists in many fi elds, will find this volume a major resource.
Converse traces the beginnings of survey research in the practical worlds of politics and business, where elite groups sought information so as to infl uence mass democratic publics and markets. During the Depression and World War II, the federal government played a major role in developing surveys on a national scale. In the 1940s certain key individuals with academic connections and experience in polling, business, or government research brought surveys into academic life. By the 1960s, what was initially viewed with suspicion had achieved a measure of scientific acceptance of survey research.
The author draws upon a wealth of material in archives, interviews, and published work to trace the origins of the early organizations (the Bureau of Applied Social Research, the National Opinion Research Center, and the Survey Research Center of Michigan), and to capture the perspectives of front-line fi gures such as Paul Lazarsfeld, George Gallup, Elmo Roper, and Rensis Likert. She writes with sensitivity and style, revealing how academic survey research, along with its commercial and political cousins, came of age in the United States.

Survey Research in the United States

Survey Questions is a highly readable guide to the principles of writing survey questions. The authors review recent research on survey questions, consider the lore of professional experience and finally present those findings which have the strongest implications on writing these questions.

Survey Questions: Handcrafting the Standardized Questionnaire

Converse

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