How do academic social scientists and survey professionals use social measurement techniques? How are these techniques applied to specific concepts in empirical research? This book is an important resource for students, academic and professional researchers, offering an overview of both new and practiced methods of social measurement for quantitative survey research. It will provide readers looking to investigate "hot" social science topics with a way of learning how key measurement techniques can be utilised in that topic in a practical way. The book emerges from the editors' work on an online social survey resource called the Question Bank which is widely used in the UK, Europe, the US and beyond. The Qb resource offers information on key social surveys and their questionnaires, provides resources which students can use to make themselves more effective survey researchers, and features a themed section of topics in social science research, including health, crime, and ethnicity and race. The aim of this book is to take this material further, to elaborate on the problems involved and to provide a comprehensive and unique resource that will enable the reader to have the confidence to use these techniques in their own research work.
Industry Reviews
'Here at last is a book that addresses the crucial role of theory in survey research. Eleven surveys are presented, each a valuable case-study in its own right, but more importantly, each shows, in a scholarly and highly readable fashion, how theory can both be derived from and inform this essential technique of social science research methodology.' Mark Garner, University of Aberdeen, UK 'Bulmer, Gibbs and Hyman's volume is light in quantitative technicality, yet rich in its discussion of the complexities underlying measurement operations; consequently, it is both highly readable, and likely to appeal to specialist and non-specialist alike. ... Overall, this collection bridges an important gap in methodological literature... this volume implicitly offers much to question tired dualisms of epistemology which often depict such measures and measurement processes as removed from the complex mix of historical and theoretical considerations addressed by the authors within.' The Irish Journal of Sociology