Perceptions of a Quality of Work-Life Survey from the Perspective of Employees in a Canadian Cancer Centre

This qualitative (phenomenological) study explored the perceptions of a quality of work-life (QWL) survey from the perspective of 10 employees from a variety of departments in a Canadian cancer centre. Data were collected through one-on-one interviews at the workplace. The interviews were conducted several months after the survey had been completed and the findings presented to staff. The following themes emerged from the analysis: (1) talking about the survey triggered discussions of QWL issues most of which were not captured in the survey; (2) the impact of the survey was more important than the survey itself; and (3) participants were concerned that departments or groups of employees were labelled based on the survey results. Implications for researchers who wish to use surveys and standardized scales in health care settings are discussed.     

Social Desirability Bias in Survey Research on Sustainable Development in Small Firms: an Exploratory Analysis of Survey Mode Effect

Survey methodology has become an increasingly popular weapon of choice in conducting research on the topic of environmental sustainability in the small firm context. However, conventional application of survey research in many empirical studies tends to ignore the inherent issues associated with the mode of administration of survey questionnaires. One of these issues is social desirability bias (SDB) arising from survey modes such as face to face, the assisted type of survey questionnaire administration and mailed or purely self‐administered survey. This study is an analysis of survey data generated by two modes: purely self‐administered and survey enumerator assisted. The paper argues that the presence of an enumerator in the workplace or actual site of the business to administer the survey will motivate the respondents to provide more accurate information about the firms' environmental sustainability knowledge and practices. The article offers suggestions to address SDB in carrying out surveys about environmental sustainability in small firms. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

津秦客专施工测量监理质量控制步骤、要点

施工测量监理在施工测量工程中要把握好每个环节的监理要点。监理参与控制点交桩;人员资质、仪器设备审查;督促施工单位对控制点进行复测并进行复测资料审核;审核加密控制点测量资料;特别是放样坐标计算测量监理要认真复核;所有施工放样都要有检核条件。     

Using emojis in mobile web surveys for Millennials? A study in Spain and Mexico

Quality & Quantity - To involve Millennials in survey participation, and obtain high-quality answers from them, survey designers may require new tools that better catch Millennials'...     

EVALUATING REAL‐TIME VAR FORECASTS WITH AN INFORMATIVE DEMOCRATIC PRIOR

This paper proposes Bayesian forecasting in a vector autoregression using a democratic prior. This prior is chosen to match the predictions of survey respondents. In particular, the unconditional mean for each series in the vector autoregression is centered around long‐horizon survey forecasts. Heavy shrinkage toward the democratic prior is found to give good real‐time predictions of a range of macroeconomic variables, as these survey projections are good at quickly capturing endpoint shifts. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The relationship between forecast dispersion and forecast uncertainty: Evidence from a survey data—arch model

This paper examines empirically the relationship between measures of forecast dispersion and forecast uncertainty from data on inflation expectations from the Livingston survey series and the Survey Research Center (SRC) survey series. Because the survey series do not provide probabilistic forecasts of inflation, we derive measures of inflation uncertainty by modelling the conditional variance of the inflation forecast errors from the survey series as an autoregressive conditional heteroscedastic (ARCH) process. The analysis is complicated by the fact that the overlap of forecast horizons for the survey series does not preclude the model's disturbance terms from displaying autocorrelation, and also places a restriction on the specification for the ARCH measures of inflation uncertainty. We estimate the model using Hansen's (1982) generalized method of moments (GMM) procedure to account for the presence of serial correlation and conditional heteroscedasticity in the disturbance terms. The results generally support the hypothesis that the measures of forecast dispersion across survey respondents are positively and statistically significantly associated with the measures of inflation uncertainty. However, the appropriateness of using forecast dispersion measures as proxies for inflation uncertainty is sensitive to the choice of the survey series.     

Developments in Survey Research over the Past 60 Years: A Personal Perspective

Many developments have occurred in the practice of survey sampling and survey methodology in the past 60 years or so. These developments have been partly driven by the emergence of computers and the continuous growth in computer power over the years and partly by the increasingly sophisticated demands from the users of survey data. The paper reviews these developments with a main emphasis on survey sampling issues for the design and analysis of social surveys. Design‐based inference based on probability samples was the predominant approach in the early years, but over time, that predominance has been eroded by the need to employ model‐dependent methods to deal with missing data and to satisfy analysts' demands for survey estimates that cannot be met with design‐based methods. With the continuous decline in response rates that has occurred in recent years, much current research has focused on the use of non‐probability samples and data collected from administrative records and web surveys.     

Face to face and telephone surveys in terms of sampling representativeness: a multidimensional analysis

This paper analyzes sample structure in a survey-based research project using both face-to-face and telephone survey techniques, at a time when the telephone survey has completely ousted the face-to-face survey; particularly in electoral studies. Multiple Correspondence Analysis is applied to the data from a political poll conducted prior to regional elections held in Spain’s Autonomous Community of Galicia in which half of the questionnaires were administered by telephone and the other half via face-to-face interview. Unlike other studies—that use a partial approach based on bivariate analysis—this one examines all the sociodemographic variables simultaneously.     

The potential of a multi-mode data collection design to reduce non response bias. The case of a survey of employers

The aim of the paper is to compare two alternative survey designs in terms of resultant response rates, non response bias and cost. The first design is a simple postal survey with follow-up mailings; the second design is a two-phase multi-mode design, where the postal survey is followed at the second phase by a telephone survey of non-respondents. We present a case study based on a survey of employers. In this study we find evidence that the sample obtained using only postal methods is biased in important respects. Bias is not apparent in the demographic characteristics of the employees. But bias is observed in some of the employees’ employment characteristics and some of the characteristics of the firms in which they work. The multi mode design seems, overall, to have reduced or removed the bias of the postal sample. Only in marginal respects was some further bias introduced. We also compare costs of the two designs, to enable a comparison of cost-effectiveness at bias reduction.     

Expectations Formation and Risk in Three Financial Markets: Surveying What the Surveys Say

This paper attempts to provide a logical overview of the literature which exploits survey data to examine issues of expectations formation and risk aversion in financial markets. Our survey suggests that: short term expectations are excessively volatile and exhibit bandwagon effects, while longer term expectations appear to be regressive and therefore stabilising; in bond and foreign exchange markets the standard result of forward rate biasedness is due in part to time-varying premia; recent research using disaggregate foreign exchange survey data demonstrates the importance of heterogeneous expectations.     

Formation of firms' production decisions in finnish manufacturing industries

Business survey data have recently been used in several studies to shed light on the formation of firms' plans and expectations. The main tool for analysis has been the multivariate conditional log-linear model. The trichotomous answers in a typical business survey have an ordering. This makes it possible to analyse firms' production decisions with a categorized version of Cox's proportional hazards model. In this paper the production decisions of Finnish firms are investigated using data from the Finnish business survey. The results obtained are largely in accord with the implications of the production smoothing model of Blinder (1982).     

Top performing banks: the benefits to investors

In this study, we examine whether superior accounting performance as reported in the annual ABA Banking Journal Top Performing Banks survey translates into higher investor returns. We observe that the announcement effect is more pronounced during the early years of the survey. For the entire survey period and for later sub-periods in which bank holding companies (BHCs) are ranked based on return on equity (ROE), we observe statistically-significant superior holding period returns against both the S&P 500 index and in some cases a matched sample. These results include raw and risk-adjusted returns as well as buy and hold abnormal returns (BHARs). We obtain similar results after controlling for the market return, size, book-to-market ratio, and momentum factors.     

“Since You’re Asking. . . ”: Free Text Commentaries in an Epidemiological Study of Low Back Pain Consulters in Primary Care

As part of a longitudinal mixed-method study on low back pain (LBP), free-text comments were invited at the end of the 12 month follow-up survey questionnaire. 80% of respondents used this option and provided a wealth of material so that comparisons could be made with survey and interview results. People reported pain in other parts of the body apart from LBP, and illustrated the impact of LBP on physical ability and work, psychological well-being and social activities. Free-text material offers valuable insights that strengthen the findings of the survey, and the study as a whole.     

The Role of Behavioral Survey Methodologists in National Statistical

The expertise of behavioral survey methodologists is needed in national statistical agencies because of the necessity of using theory and research from the social sciences to reduce survey error. In this paper various social science based explanations for measurement error and nonresponse error are described in order to illustrate the conceptual foundations of such error reduction efforts. Three roles for behavioral survey methodologists in national statistical agencies are then discussed. They include: 1) bring an error reduction perspective to bear in an influential way for all aspects of designing and implementing agency surveys; 2) bring theoretical efficiency and effectiveness to experimental tests of alternative questionnaire designs and implementation procedures through the use of theories, concepts and pretests and findings of past behavioral science research; and 3) contribute to the expanding science of survey methodology.     

Forecasting macroeconomic variables using disaggregate survey data

We construct factor models based on disaggregate survey data for forecasting national aggregate macroeconomic variables. Our methodology applies regional and sectoral factor models to Norges Bank’s regional survey and to the Swedish Business Tendency Survey. The analysis identifies which of the pieces of information extracted from the individual regions in Norges Bank’s survey and the sectors for the two surveys perform particularly well at forecasting different variables at various horizons. The results show that several factor models beat an autoregressive benchmark in forecasting inflation and the unemployment rate. However, the factor models are most successful at forecasting GDP growth. Forecast combinations using the past performances of regional and sectoral factor models yield the most accurate forecasts in the majority of the cases.     

Evaluating,Comparing, Monitoring,and Improving Representativeness of Survey Response Through R‐Indicators and Partial R‐Indicators

Non‐response is a common source of error in many surveys. Because surveys often are costly instruments, quality‐cost trade‐offs play a continuing role in the design and analysis of surveys. The advances of telephone, computers, and Internet all had and still have considerable impact on the design of surveys. Recently, a strong focus on methods for survey data collection monitoring and tailoring has emerged as a new paradigm to efficiently reduce non‐response error. Paradata and adaptive survey designs are key words in these new developments. Prerequisites to evaluating, comparing, monitoring, and improving quality of survey response are a conceptual framework for representative survey response, indicators to measure deviations thereof, and indicators to identify subpopulations that need increased effort. In this paper, we present an overview of representativeness indicators or R‐indicators that are fit for these purposes. We give several examples and provide guidelines for their use in practice.     

Experimental comparison of Web, electronic and mail survey technologies in operations management

With the growing acceptance of the Web (Internet) and electronic mail, it is no surprise that researchers are using an increasingly diverse set of survey technologies to gather data from managers. However, the effectiveness of these electronic technologies has not been rigorously assessed, especially for gathering data from establishment-level surveys (i.e. firm- or plant-level). To that end, a stratified sample of large and small, service and manufacturing firms was constructed, followed by random assignment to one of four survey technologies: mail, fax, PC disk-by-mail and Web-page survey (combined with e-mail notification). For each treatment, managers are queried about their use of forecasting characteristics, yielding a sample of 118 firms. Unfortunately, only a low percentage (34%) of firms and managers assigned to the Web technology treatment both reported access to e-mail and were willing provide their e-mail addresses; they tended to be large firms and from the service sector. Moreover, those that did offer e-mail addresses were only about half as likely to respond to the Web-based survey as those targeted by other survey technologies. However, Web, fax and disk-by-mail technologies yielded higher item completion rates than mail. Limited statistical evidence indicated that respondents using computer-based survey technologies (i.e. Web or disk-by-mail) generally reported forecasting characteristics that are associated with firms exhibiting best practices. Thus, a multi-technology survey approach using the Web and fax can yield a strong combination of benefits over a traditional mail survey.     

Learning and fatigue during choice experiments: a comparison of online and mail survey modes

This study investigates the effect of survey mode on respondent learning and fatigue during repeated choice experiments. Stated preference data are obtained from an experiment concerning high‐speed Internet service conducted on samples of mail respondents and online respondents. We identify and estimate aspects of the error components for different subsets of the choice questions, for both mail and online respondents. Results show mail respondents answer questions consistently throughout a series of choice experiments, but the quality of the online respondents' answers declines. Therefore, while the online survey provides lower survey administration costs and reduced time between implementation and data analysis, such benefits come at the cost of less precise responses. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Face-to-face versus telephone surveys on political attitudes: a comparative analysis

Several researchers declared that the telephone survey reaches more accurate voting tendencies than the face-to-face surveys. Telephone survey shows numerous advantages compared to a face-to-face one but, however, the telephone survey also has some inconveniences. Among these it is important to highlight the scant quality of the sampling frame; absence of a telephone in some homes and the wide expansion of the mobile phone; low response rate of certain collectives and the overrepresentation of others. There are also some new barrierswhich make access more difficult (e.g. the automatic answering phone) and the saturation of the telephone medium because of the large amount of publicity activities which generate a large number of “unsuccessful” calls and interruptedinterviews. The objective of this paper is evaluating the adaptation of the telephone surveys in the electoral forecasts; in an attempt to see if it shows substantial improvements when they are compared to face-to-face interviews.     

A priority assignment model for standards and conditions in a long term care survey

Presently a survey document is used in New York State to enforce Federal and State regulatory standards for long term care facilities (skilled nursing facilities and health related facilities). This document is used to establish Medicare and Medicaid certification for these facilities.

This study describes the creation of a new survey process—a first stage consisting of a screening survey followed, if necessary, by an intensive survey. A priority assignment model which utilizes the judgements of experts from the New York State Office of Health Systems Management (OHSM) has been developed. This model is employed to develop ranks, priority weights and classifications for the various standards and the Federal conditions which the standards comprise (as well as equivalent State regulations).

Saaty's Analytical Hierarchy Process is used to obtain the ranks and priority weights. The consistency of the experts' judgements is measured using Kendall's coefficient of agreement. An optimal split algorithm is used to subdivide the standards and conditions according to impact (high, moderate or low) on patient care, health and safety.

The results are to be used as a management tool in developing decision rules for defining the scope of the intensive survey on the basis of screening survey results.