Surveys in Social Research

Assuming no background in statistics on the part of the reader, this text provides advice on how to plan, conduct and analyze social surveys, emphasizing the links between theory and research, the logic and interpretation of statistics, and the practice of social research. This new edition contains a new chapter on ethics and a detailed glossary. As well as showing how to conduct good surveys, the author offers advice to readers on becoming critical consumers of research. He stresses that the logic of surveys and statistics is simply an extension of everyday logic, but that analysis is an art which requires creativity and imagination rather than the application of sterile mechanical procedures. As a result, his argument highlights the plain logic, selection and interpretation of statistics rather than formulae and computation.