OECD Guidelines on Measuring Subjective Well-being


Book Description

These Guidelines represent the first attempt to provide international recommendations on collecting, publishing, and analysing subjective well-being data.




Improving Survey Questions


Book Description

Questions as Measures An Overview Designing Questions to Gather Factual Data Questions to Measure Subjective States Some General Rules for Designing Good Survey Instruments Presurvey Evaluation of Questions Assessing the Validity of Survey Questions Question Design and Evaluation Issues in Perspective.




The Science of Subjective Well-Being


Book Description

This authoritative volume reviews the breadth of current scientific knowledge on subjective well-being (SWB): its definition, causes and consequences, measurement, and practical applications that may help people become happier. Leading experts explore the connections between SWB and a range of intrapersonal and interpersonal phenomena, including personality, health, relationship satisfaction, wealth, cognitive processes, emotion regulation, religion, family life, school and work experiences, and culture. Interventions and practices that enhance SWB are examined, with attention to both their benefits and limitations. The concluding chapter from Ed Diener dispels common myths in the field and presents a thoughtful agenda for future research.




The Problem with Survey Research


Book Description

The Problem with Survey Research makes a case against survey research as a primary source of reliable information. George Beam argues that all survey research instruments, all types of asking-including polls, face-to-face interviews, and focus groups-produce unreliable and potentially inaccurate results. Because those who rely on survey research only see answers to questions, it is impossible for them, or anyone else, to evaluate the results. They cannot know if the answers correspond to respondents' actual behaviors (objective phenomena) or to their true beliefs and opinions (subjective phenomena). Reliable information can only be acquired by observation, experimentation, multiple sources of data, formal model building and testing, document analysis, and comparison. In fifteen chapters divided into six parts-Ubiquity of Survey Research, The Problem, Asking Instruments, Asking Settings, Askers, and Proper Methods and Research Designs-The Problem with Survey Research demonstrates how asking instruments, settings in which asking and answering take place, and survey researchers themselves skew results and thereby make answers unreliable. The last two chapters and appendices examine observation, other methods of data collection and research designs that may produce accurate or correct information, and shows how reliance on survey research can be overcome, and must be.




Subjective Well-Being


Book Description

Subjective well-being refers to how people experience and evaluate their lives and specific domains and activities in their lives. This information has already proven valuable to researchers, who have produced insights about the emotional states and experiences of people belonging to different groups, engaged in different activities, at different points in the life course, and involved in different family and community structures. Research has also revealed relationships between people's self-reported, subjectively assessed states and their behavior and decisions. Research on subjective well-being has been ongoing for decades, providing new information about the human condition. During the past decade, interest in the topic among policy makers, national statistical offices, academic researchers, the media, and the public has increased markedly because of its potential for shedding light on the economic, social, and health conditions of populations and for informing policy decisions across these domains. Subjective Well-Being: Measuring Happiness, Suffering, and Other Dimensions of Experience explores the use of this measure in population surveys. This report reviews the current state of research and evaluates methods for the measurement. In this report, a range of potential experienced well-being data applications are cited, from cost-benefit studies of health care delivery to commuting and transportation planning, environmental valuation, and outdoor recreation resource monitoring, and even to assessment of end-of-life treatment options. Subjective Well-Being finds that, whether used to assess the consequence of people's situations and policies that might affect them or to explore determinants of outcomes, contextual and covariate data are needed alongside the subjective well-being measures. This report offers guidance about adopting subjective well-being measures in official government surveys to inform social and economic policies and considers whether research has advanced to a point which warrants the federal government collecting data that allow aspects of the population's subjective well-being to be tracked and associated with changing conditions.




Public Opinion Polls and Survey Research


Book Description

First Published in 1990. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.







When to Use What Research Design


Book Description

Systematic, practical, and accessible, this is the first book to focus on finding the most defensible design for a particular research question. Thoughtful guidelines are provided for weighing the advantages and disadvantages of various methods, including qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods designs. The book can be read sequentially or readers can dip into chapters on specific stages of research (basic design choices, selecting and sampling participants, addressing ethical issues) or data collection methods (surveys, interviews, experiments, observations, archival studies, and combined methods). Many chapter headings and subheadings are written as questions, helping readers quickly find the answers they need to make informed choices that will affect the later analysis and interpretation of their data. Useful features include: *Easy-to-navigate part and chapter structure. *Engaging research examples from a variety of fields. *End-of-chapter tables that summarize the main points covered. *Detailed suggestions for further reading at the end of each chapter. *Integration of data collection, sampling, and research ethics in one volume. *Comprehensive glossary. See also Vogt et al.'s Selecting the Right Analyses for Your Data, which addresses the next steps in coding, analyzing, and interpreting data.




Judgment and Decision Making


Book Description

Behavioral decision research offers a distinctive approach to understanding and improving decision making. It combines theory and method from multiple disciples (psychology, economics, statistics, decision theory, management science). It employs both empirical methods, to study how decisions are actually made, and analytical ones, to study how decisions should be made and how consequential imperfections are. This book brings together key publications, selected to represent the major topics and approaches used in the field. Put in one place, with integrating commentary, it shows the common elements in a research program that represents the scope of the field, while offering depth in each. Together, they provide a vision for what has become a burgeoning field.




Making Sense of the Social World


Book Description

"Making Sense of the Social World, Fourth Edition is an engaging and student-friendly introduction to social research for students who need to understand methodologies and results, but who may never conduct research themselves. It provides a balanced treatment of qualitative and quantitative methods, integrating substantive examples and research techniques throughout. All essential elements of social research methods are covered, including validity, causation, experimental and quasi-experimental design, and techniques of analysis. Additionally, it is written in a less formal style to make concepts more accessible to students, and it includes wide-ranging, practical exercises drawn from every experience to help students get hands-on with the material."--pub. desc.