1. Study Design
Unit of analysis—the persons, individuals or groups that you are studying
May ask one person about a group—family head about family
Aim design to meet the unit of analysis

2. Design
Focus on purposes of research
Describe
Explain
Exploration

3. Levels of measurement
Nominal
Ordinal
Scale
Index

4. Basic Survey Designs
Cross-sectional—one point in time, describe populations
Synthetic cohorts may “imply” longitudinal data
Snapshot
Longitudinal—over time, describe and explain subpopulations and populations
repetitive questions of same people

5. Longitudinal studies
Trend studies—Requestioned repetitively, problems with attrition
Cohort studies—focuses on the same subpopulation each round, subjects may vary
Panel studies—specific group of respondents, series of questionnaires over time, same sample—attrition issue; turnover table
Repeated cross-sections

6. Longitudinal
Costly
Must have systems for finding and maintaining relationships
measure issues of change

7. Alternatives
parallel studies—using two or more subpopulations in parallel with same questions
Contextual studies—questions asked about the milieu in which the questions are asked
Sociometrics—physical and mental function, not attitudes

8. Choosing your design
Description of a population at a specific time—cross-section
Dynamic process or change over time –longitudinal
Trend studies work if the duration of time is short—less attrition
repeat cross-sections—gross principles over time--cheaper

9. Design issues
Combination of questions, research purpose and money available to decide on design
Paying respondents and interviewers
telephone surveys
Survey antipathy
Questionnaire length

10. What do you want to measure?
change
Attitudes
behaviors
physical or mental capabilities
actions

11. Effect of survey
affects the operationalization and number of concepts covered
examples

12. Get the most from the data
Synthetic cohort
divide the sample into age groups and test the differences in one cross-section
less cost
must be careful about ecological fallacy

13. Error Sources
Measurement
Misconceptualization
Randomness error

14. Validity Issues Face validity Content Criterion-based Construction
Convergent
Discriminant

15. Standardized variables
IPCSR
Design texts
Other surveys