Constructing Survey Data

Giampietro Gobo is Professor of Methodology of Social Research and Sociology of Science at the University of Milan (Italy). He was one of the founders of the 'Qualitative Methods' Research Network of the European Sociological Association. His interests concern scientific controversies on health issues and workplace studies. He is currently undertaking projects on immunization and COVID-19 policies, and ethnographic experiments in the area of cooperation in small teamwork. His books include Doing Ethnography (Sage, 2008), Qualitative Research Practice (co-edited with C. Seale, J. F. Gubrium and D. Silverman, Sage, 2004) and Constructing Survey Data: An Interactional Approach (with S. Mauceri, Sage, 2014). Sergio Mauceri, Ph.D., is Lecturer in Methodology of Social Sciences and teaches Quantitative and Qualitative Strategies of Social Research at the Department of Communication and Social Research - University of Rome 'La Sapienza'. He has published several books and articles on data quality in survey research, mixed strategies, ethnic prejudice, multicultural cohabitation, delay in the transition to adulthood, worker well-being in call centres and homophobia.

Introduction: Rescuing the survey PART ONE: THE CONTEXT Surveying the Survey: Back to the Past The Making of the 'Survey Society': The 19th Century The Common Roots of the Survey and In-depth Interview The Pioneers: 1880 - 1935 Technical Improvements and the Abandonment of Mixed Methods The Idea of Standardizing the Survey Interview The Split between Quantitative and Qualitative Methods The Explosion and Institutionalization of Surveys Technical Modifications toward a Standardized Interview The Decline of the Concern for Data Collection The Globalization of the Survey Culture Model Concluding Remarks Back to the 'Golden Age': Towards a Multilevel Integrated Survey Approach What is Survey Research? From the Standard to the Multlievel and Integrated Survey Approach Concluding Remarks PART TWO: FROM QUESTIONS TO ANSWERS The Answering Process What Lies Behind the Datum? The Co-construction of Survey Data The 'Cognitive Turn' and the CASM Movement Inference Procedures Situation Awareness The Limits of the 'Cognitive Turn' and Social Information Processing (SIP) From Cognition to Interaction: The Pragmatic Turn The Logic of Conversation Concluding Remarks Asking and Questioning Attributing Meanings to Questions Evaluation: The Heuristics of Judgement An Alternative Typology: Cognitive Tasks and Response Alternatives Concluding Remarks Answers: Cognitive Processes Open-ended or Closed-ended? Facing the Dilemma Scalar Answers The Influence of the Response Alternatives The Pragmatics of Response Alternatives Response Alternatives and Linguistic Communities Researchers versus Interviewees? Towards a Reconciliation of Separate Worlds Concluding Remarks Communicative Processes Psychological States of Interaction Social Conventions Answers and Interviewees' Demographic Characteristics The Setting Concluding Remarks The Living Questionnaire: The Survey at Work The Initial Contact with Interviewees The Nonresponse Phenomenon The Sociology and Psychology of Nonresponse The Questionnaire in Action Incongruences in the Answers Concluding Remarks PART THREE: CONSTRUCTING ANSWER COMPARABILITY From Standardization of Stimuli to Standardization of Meanings: The Interactional Survey Approach The Behaviourism-based SSA: The Standardization of Stimuli The Interactional Survey Approach: Standardizing Meanings Bridging the Gap between Questionnaire (Researcher) and Interviewee: Empowering the Interviewer Standardizing the Meaning of Response Alternatives Too Concluding Remarks Training for the Interactional Survey Approach Motivating the Interviewee by Following the Norms of Conversation The Interviewer's Hermeneutic Role The Specific Hermeneutic Competence of Interviewers Evaluation of Interviewer Performance Concluding Remarks PART FOUR: DESIGNING DATA QUALITY THROUGH MIXED STRATEGIES Re-conceptualizing Data Quality What is Data Quality? Dimensions of Data Quality From Data Quality to Survey Quality Concluding Remarks Mixed Survey Strategies: Quality in the Quantity What is Mixed Methods Research? Mixed Strategies: The Proportion of Quality and Quantity in a Research Design The Integrative Role of Qualitative Procedures in the Survey: A Typology The Pilot Study: Orientation of the Data Construction Process Concluding Remarks Pretesting Strategies: Assessing Data Quality in Advance Aims of Pretesting Pretesting Strategies based on Manifest Evidence Qualitative Strategies: Inside the Black Box to Discover the Hidden Biases Concluding Remarks Deviant Case Analysis: Improving Data Quality The Limitations of Monitoring Techniques within the Data Matrix Deviant Case Analysis (DCA): The Exception that Refines the Rule The Functions of Deviant Case Analysis Exploring Deviant Cases: Some Techniques Concluding Remarks PART FIVE: ENVISIONING THE FUTURE Glocalizing the Survey Towards Multicultural Methodology The Global Survey and its Discontents: The Limits of Current Survey Methodology An Individualist Social Philosophy Western Tacit Knowledge Embedded in the Survey Model Lessons Learned from Cross-Cultural Surveys De-colonizing the Survey The Local Structural Context Combining Global and Local Brand New: Re-Styling the Survey Concluding Remarks

In this (very) well-written book, the authors make a persuasive case for reuniting surveys and interviews; those methods have come to be the paradigm examples of the differences between quantitative and qualitative methods, but Gobo and Mauceri demonstrate that they could be natural allies in a mixed-method approach. Rather than continue with the current uneasy division of labor between survey and interview research, the authors propose reintegrating them in a synthesis that has deep historical roots and promises more profound and nuanced interpretations. -- Paul Vogt, Emeritus Professor of Research Methods and Evaluation This insightful and innovative book will be of interest to survey researchers and qualitative researchers alike. I will be recommending that colleagues teaching survey methods, and our survey researchers, use Gobo and Mauceri's new book, along with those of us teaching field methods. We still teach our Masters programme with quantitative and qualitative methods in separate 'boxes', and Gobo and Mauceri's book shows the very necessary bridge between quantitative and qualitative methods. As such, it also contributes to the development of integrative mixed methods research. -- Professor Nigel Fielding This book is an outstanding contribution to the literature on survey methodology, and one that uniquely incorporates the most thoroughgoing understanding of how interaction works in relation to obtaining quality survey data. It is a remarkable achievement and belongs on the desk of anyone interested in survey methodology and in doing and using survey research more generally. -- Professor Douglas Maynard Constructing Survey Data is an ambitious, detailed, carefully pursued clarification of the history and current use of survey research by re-discovering an older, broader sense of "survey research," a perspective the authors call an "interactional survey approach" consistent with John Dewey's pragmatist perspective. The authors have created a comprehensive overview summarizing a huge literature and an equally comprehensive examination of the heart of contemporary social science research, a perspective that dominates contemporary studies favouring fixed-choice choices and digital outcomes. -- Aaron V. Cicourel, Emeritus Professor It is an intriguing and exceptionally well argued thesis whereby Gobo and Mauceri open up the possibilities of reimagining the survey within a new qualitative framework, as well as a different cultural setting. Following on from this, I think we need to be much more proactive in using such intelligence to take a stance against the overwhelming plethora of "surveys" by which we are supposed to be measured. While this was not its goal, for me this book is a timely reminder of what happens when you pay peanuts for your survey design tool. -- David Land, Clarite Research Ltd. In the book Constructing Survey Data authors Giampietro Gobo and Sergio Mauceri have dedicated themselves 'the new generation of social scientists', and they contribute to contemporary sociological methodology by expanding the borders not only of understanding but also implementing this in the 21st century. -- Marija Loncar, Odsjek za sociologiju, Filozofski The chapters are well-written, well-presented, and contain very entertaining examples - some of which made me laugh out loud - of the issues, problems, and different operational uses of survey research across countries, cultures, and languages. It has excellent practical advice for questionnaire and interview design, and a great range of further reading suggestions at the end of each chapter. The book therefore makes an invaluable teaching aid for discussing survey research, particularly in a classroom setting where some of the questions it raised for me could be debated and discussed further, and perhaps for pointing out that qualitative methods can sometimes offer alternative options to the problems with survey data that the authors raise. -- Clare Mumford, Faculty of Business and Law, The Open University [This] is an intriguing and exceptionally well argued thesis whereby Gobo and Mauceri open up the possibilities of reimagining the survey within a new qualitative framework, as well as a different cultural setting. -- David Land, Clarite Research Ltd.