Survey Practice August 2011

Announcement of a Special Topics Issue – Measurement in Public Opinion Polls

Survey Practice will publish a special topic issue on measurement in public opinion polls in December 2011. The lead article in the current issue by David Moore provides context on the topic. The SP editors invite responses to this article, other empirical articles related to the topic, and all forms of thought pieces. We expect that many articles will not have data and that some authors may want to comment on the topic rather than present research findings. Both short and long comments will be published. The deadline for the articles / comments is Tuesday November 22. Please contact us at survprac@indiana.edu if you have questions about the special issue.

August Issue Contents

In his article about public policy polls, David Moore raises three issues that may detract from the utility of these polls: 1) ignoring non-opinion, 2) not accounting for intensity of opinion, and 3) failing to differentiate between hypothetical and actual opinion. The article might be controversial but we hope that it will inspire others to contest or support his views in the special topic issue of SP.

The collection and use of paradata will influence survey methods in the next few years. Brady West provides a summary of a roundtable discussion at JSM on paradata. The article describes the types and uses of paradata. In addition, he provides several recent references on the topic.

David Dutwin and his colleagues describe five customized caller-ID experiments. They try to determine which kinds of caller-id text and numbers are effective in increasing response rates. As is often the case in survey research, the results varied by context.

Survey Practice is read internationally and many Europeans have contributed to SP. The article by Bella Struminskaya and her colleagues describes a method of prescreening cell telephone numbers that is very useful for European survey researchers.

Amanda Richardson examined the use of postcards and letters for presurvey notifications. She found that overall letters were more cost-effective than postcards.

As always, we welcome your comments and hope that you will send articles to SP. Please contact us (survprac@indiana.edu) if you have questions.

Editors

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