Web Exercises

  1. Who does survey research and how do they do it? These ques­tions can be answered through careful inspection of ongoing surveys and the organizations that administer them at www.ciser.cornell.edu/info/polls.shtml. Spend some time readingabout the different survey research organizations, and write a brief summary of the types of research they conduct, the projects in which they are involved, and the resources they offer on their websites. What are the distinctive features of different survey research organizations?
  2. Go to the Research Triangle Institute site at www.rti.org. Click on “Survey Research & Services” then “Innovations.” Read about their methods for computer-assisted interview­ing and their cognitive laboratory methods for refining questions. What does this add to my treatment of these topics in this chapter?
  3. Go to the UK Data Service at http://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/variables. In the search box, enter topics of interest such as “health” or “inequality.” Review five questions for two topic areas and critique them in terms of the principles for question writing that you have learned. Do you find any question features that might be attributed to the use of British English?