402281 Survey Research Methods in Demography (S) (SoSe 2024)

This course aims to introduce students to the issues and methods of survey research. It covers the core methodological steps of survey research, including defining study populations, methods of data collection, designing and evaluating questions and questionnaires, data processing and weighting, and the analysis of survey data. Special attention will be given to the wording of questions, cognitive aspects, order of response alternatives, open versus closed questions, handling sensitive topics, combining individual questions into a meaningful questionnaire, issues related to question order and context, and aspects of a questionnaire other than questions.
The course has a substantial "hands‐on" component. Practical sessions may include the development and application of a research instrument and analysis of micro-/macro-data. Students will be introduced to R programming.
By the end of the course, students will be able to construct an effective questionnaire that employs several types of survey questions, prepare descriptive tables and apply ordinary least squares (and logistic regression models) using R.

Empfohlene Voraussetzungen
The course builds on the Module 40-MPH-2 (MPH 11: Einführung in Epidemiologie und Biostatistik, MPH 21: Methoden der Epidemiologie und Biostatistik) auf. It is also recommended to take Module 40-MPH-3, specifically MPH13 Bevölkerungsmedizinische Grundlagen, and Module 40-MPH-1 (MPH 10: Methoden Quantitativer und Qualitativer Forschung, Einführung und Vertiefung).

Bibliography

1) Donald J. Treiman (2009) Quantitative Data Analysis: Doing Social Research to Test Ideas (Research Methods for the Social Sciences)
2) Fowler, Floyd J. Survey Research Methods (2013); Chapters 1 and 2. SAGE Publications
3) Chambliss, Daniel F.; Schutt, Russell K. Making Sense of the Social World (2019); Chapter 7. SAGE Publications