What’s in Survey Practice This Month

In this month’s issue, we (the editors) wanted to show some of the diverse types of articles that can be published in Survey Practice. At the recent AAPOR annual meeting in New Orleans, the presentation that seemed to generate the most “buzz” was about the problems of using the listed 100-series as the basis for RDD samples. We asked the authors to prepare a summary of their paper so that those who did not hear the paper could read it. We invite your comments on the paper and others in this issue.

One goal of Survey Practice is to be open to a variety of methodologies. In the paper on barriers to participation in surveys, the authors used focus groups to better understand why older adults decline to participate in surveys. Our third article features prominent pollsters describing their thoughts about polling procedures and other issues in the month prior to the presidential election. We expect that their thoughts would be informative to those who do not regularly conduct polls.

This month’s issue has fewer articles than last month. We are experimenting with different types and numbers of articles through the first year of Survey Practice. Please send us your thoughts about Survey Practice either as a comment or to survprac@indiana.edu.

The Editors

• John Kennedy
• Diane O’Rourke
• David Moore
• Andy Peytchev