"This third edition is again a practical introduction to communication research methods, foregrounding the role research plays in communication and media industry careers. Covering major methodologies such as surveys, experiments, focus groups, in-depth interviews, content analysis, and others, the
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book takes the reader through the research process from beginning to end. The text continues to help students link the research methods they learn to practical contexts through its activities and features, which include Voices from Industry boxes written by practitioners that give insight into application of methods; Steps to Success research review checklists; and numerous end-of-chapter activities to reinforce concepts. This third edition contains updates throughout, including an expanded discussion of reliability and validity across both qualitative and quantitative research contexts as well as new Research in Action boxes that showcase how research is used in professional and public contexts." (Publisher description)
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"For the past six years, we’ve been investing heavily in phone-based surveys to gather high-quality feedback and social performance data. Our belief has been that, when done correctly, phone-based phone surveys can get high-quality customer data at a fraction of the cost of traditional in-person s
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urveys. With this kind of data in hand, everyone working to make social change—whether governments, social businesses, NGOs, foundations or corporations—can be more flexible and responsive in the services they offer, allowing them to transform “social performance management” from idea into reality. In March of 2020, the world was hit by COVID-19, and nearly every country and society around the world is practicing social distancing and placing restrictions on travel and face-to-face interaction. One of the countless impacts of these changes is that nearly all face-to-face research has been temporarily suspended, and many of the organizations conducting this research are exploring shifting some or all of their work to phone-based surveys. We want to help make this transition as seamless as possible and have put together this free guide to help. It captures many of the most important lessons we’ve learned in conducting phone-based surveys since 2014." (Introduction)
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Since ITU first published this Manual in 2009, the digital technology sector has evolved almost beyond recognition. The Internet is now accessed through a multitude of devices, including mobile phones, tablets and similar handheld computers. The impressive spread of mobile broadband networks has bro
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ught online access to people in areas where fixed infrastructure is limited – for example, outside major urban areas, especially in developing countries. And the world over, more and more young people are growing up using digital technologies.
The second edition of the Manual, published in 2014, extended the list of ICT indicators and added a full on coordination of the national statistical system in the area of ICT statistics. However, the continued rapid growth and evolution of the global information society demands continuous review of our current ICT indicators and their definitions. A key component of ITU’s statistical work therefore involves the development and revision of the international standards used to monitor the progress of countries’ transformation into information societies.
In this third edition, we continue the trend of expanding the list of ICT indicators, while taking stock of the experiences of developed and developing countries alike in the implementation of ICT surveys. In addition, we have also introduced new measurement topics, reflecting the evolving nature of digital access and use.
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"Mobile phone surveys are increasingly prevalent in low- and middle-income countries. The main modes include computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI), interactive voice response (IVR), and short message service (SMS, or text messaging). But there is surprisingly little research to guide resea
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rchers in selecting the optimal mode for a particular survey. To address this gap, this study compares cross-sectional CATI, IVR, SMS, and face-to-face (FTF) surveys of the general population in Nigeria. We ask four research questions: (1) What are production and response rates to CATI, IVR, SMS, and FTF surveys? (2) How representative (age, gender, education, marital status, literacy, household assets, urbanicity) are CATI, IVR, and SMS respondents relative to FTF respondents? (3) Can IVR and SMS provide an unbiased estimate of voting behavior? If there is bias, to what extent can weights reduce bias? (4) How does the cost and time differ across mobile phone survey modes? We find that FTF had the highest response rate (99%), followed by CATI (15%), IVR (3%) and SMS (0.2%). All mobile phone modes had substantial deficiencies with representativeness: mobile phones underrepresented women, older people, the less educated, and people in rural areas. There were differences in representativeness among mobile phone modes, but differences were relatively small and inconsistent. Both SMS and IVR produced biased estimates of voting relative to official statistics—but SMS was less biased than IVR. Weighting SMS and IVR data for demographic characteristics did not reduce bias. With regard to cost, we find that CATI is the most expensive mobile phone survey mode. For a survey of 3,000 completes, IVR is 43% the cost of CATI, and SMS is 24% the cost of CATI. SMS is significantly less expensive than IVR. We discuss the implications of these results for research and practice." (Abstract)
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"Surveys and questionnaires are designed to collect and record information from multiple people, groups or organisations in a consistent way. Surveys and questionnaires can be used on their own as data collection tools. They are also an essential part of some more complex data collection and analysi
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s methodologies. They can be used at any time within a project or programme cycle." (Introduction)
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"What is the purpose of your survey? What data are you looking to collect? How can you best collect that data? What sort of survey and research methodology should you use? How should you write the questions in your survey? Who should you survey? This ebook is designed to take you through these quest
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ions and help you design a survey that will give you high-quality data. Chapter 1 will help you think through the purpose, outcomes and indicators of your survey. Chapters 2 and 3 will help you determine what data collection method you should use, as well as whether you need a qualitative or quantitative survey. Chapters 4-8 address writing the questions in your survey — what you want to ask and best practices around how to ask it. Lastly, Chapter 9 covers all aspects of sampling your population — sampling methods, best practices, and a quick sample size formula." (Page 5)
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"Surveys enjoy great ubiquity among data collection methods in social research: they are flexible in questioning techniques, in the amount of questions asked, in the topics covered, and in the various ways of interactions with respondents. Surveys are also the preferred method by many researchers in
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the social sciences due to their ability to provide quick profiles and results. Because they are so commonly used and fairly easy to administer, surveys are often thought to be easily thrown together. But designing an effective survey that yields reliable and valid results takes more than merely asking questions and waiting for the answers to arrive. Geared to the non-statistician, the Handbook of Survey Methodology in Social Sciences addresses issues throughout all phases of survey design and implementation. Chapters examine the major survey methods of data collection, providing expert guidelines for asking targeted questions, improving accuracy and quality of responses, while reducing sampling and non-sampling bias. Relying on the Total Survey Error theory, various issues of both sampling and non-sampling sources of error are explored and discussed." (Publisher description)
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"The objective of the household survey is to measure the transformational development indicators on nutrition, immunization, education, water, diarrhoea management, household resilience, poorest households and HIV/AIDS. Development programs should aim to be able to use this survey method with a leve
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l of precision and accuracy for measuring these eight indicators. This volume of the Transformational Development Indicators (TDI) field guide explains, step by step, how to design and implement the TDI household survey. Each step in the process is clearly numbered to assist staff in using this guide. Chapters 1-5 describe the actual process of survey implementation, which includes defining the survey and area to be surveyed, preparation of the questionnaire, determination of sample size and the selection of the sample. There are also sections on data collection and bias inherent with this method. Chapter 6 describes the steps involved in data analysis using the software provided by the Development Resources Team (DeRT). The appendices include additional resources that may be useful for training and learning about household survey method, random sampling. It includes sample questionnaires, as well as a glossary and bibliography of survey literature." (Introduction, page 7)
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Describes simple, low-cost techniques for the effective collection of social and economic information, addressing such issues as study design, management and information, fieldworker selection, training and supervision.