Social Measurement through Social Surveys: An Applied Approach

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.