A New Approach to Building Fuzzy Classifications in Sociological Research with Survey Data

2005 ◽  
pp. 349-356
Author(s):  
Yu. N. Blagoveschensky ◽  
G.A. Satarov
Keyword(s):  
Survey Data ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
New Approach

Survey Data Quality in Analyzing Harmonized Indicators of Protest Behavior: A Survey Data Recycling Approach

2021 ◽  
pp. 000276422110216
Author(s):  
Kazimierz M. Slomczynski ◽  
Irina Tomescu-Dubrow ◽  
Ilona Wysmulek
Keyword(s):  
Data Processing ◽  
Data Quality ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Survey Quality ◽  
Survey Error ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
The Impact

This article proposes a new approach to analyze protest participation measured in surveys of uneven quality. Because single international survey projects cover only a fraction of the world’s nations in specific periods, researchers increasingly turn to ex-post harmonization of different survey data sets not a priori designed as comparable. However, very few scholars systematically examine the impact of the survey data quality on substantive results. We argue that the variation in source data, especially deviations from standards of survey documentation, data processing, and computer files—proposed by methodologists of Total Survey Error, Survey Quality Monitoring, and Fitness for Intended Use—is important for analyzing protest behavior. In particular, we apply the Survey Data Recycling framework to investigate the extent to which indicators of attending demonstrations and signing petitions in 1,184 national survey projects are associated with measures of data quality, controlling for variability in the questionnaire items. We demonstrate that the null hypothesis of no impact of measures of survey quality on indicators of protest participation must be rejected. Measures of survey documentation, data processing, and computer records, taken together, explain over 5% of the intersurvey variance in the proportions of the populations attending demonstrations or signing petitions.

scholarly journals Who Votes More Strategically?

2020 ◽  
Vol 114 (2) ◽  
pp. 470-485 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANDREW C. EGGERS ◽  
NICK VIVYAN
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Strategic Behavior ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Strategic Voting ◽  
Education Level ◽  
New Approach

Strategic voting is an important explanation for aggregate political phenomena, but we know little about how strategic voting varies across types of voters. Are richer voters more strategic than poorer voters? Does strategic behavior vary with age, education, gender, or political leaning? The answers may be important for assessing how well an electoral system represents different preferences in society. We introduce a new approach to measuring and comparing strategic voting across voters that can be broadly applied, given appropriate survey data. In recent British elections, we find that older voters vote more strategically than younger voters and that richer voters vote more strategically than poorer voters, even as strategic behavior varies little across the education level. The differences in strategic voting by age and income are smaller than observed differences in turnout by age and income, but they tend to exacerbate these better-known inequalities in political participation.

A simple variance estimator for the trapezoidal area-under-the-curve estimator of the spawner abundance of Pacific salmon

2013 ◽  
Vol 70 (8) ◽  
pp. 1231-1239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell B. Millar ◽  
Chris E. Jordan
Keyword(s):  
Survey Data ◽  
Mean Squared Error ◽  
Pacific Salmon ◽  
Area Under The Curve ◽  
Variance Estimator ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Squared Error

The trapezoidal area-under-the-curve (TAUC) method is the simplest and most widely used method for estimating the spawning abundance of Pacific salmon from periodic surveys of spawner counts within a surveyed area. However, there is currently no method to estimate the precision of the estimated spawner abundance from the survey data. For this reason the Gaussian area-under-the-curve (GAUC) method was recently presented as an easily implemented alternative that has the advantage of having a variance estimator. However, under a diverse variety of simulation scenarios, the TAUC estimator was seen to be a slightly better estimator of escapement on the basis of mean squared error. It is shown here that a variance estimator for the TAUC method can be obtained as an immediate by-product of the GAUC method. Furthermore, this new approach can easily be extended to accommodate asymmetric and multimodal patterns of spawner abundance by the use of basis splines.

ULVS XXVII: Mapping and Spatial Analysis of the Libyan Valleys Data using GIS

1995 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 49-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. P. J. Flower ◽  
D. J. Mattingly
Keyword(s):  
Information System ◽  
Spatial Analysis ◽  
Geographical Information System ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Geographical Information ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Site Distribution ◽  
Mapping Tool ◽  
The Way

AbstractThis article presents a new approach to the analysis of the UNESCO Libyan Valleys Survey data, using a Geographical Information System (GIS) for mapping and spatial analysis of site distribution. The first section of the article describes the way in which the GIS was compiled and linked to the computerised gazetteer database. The second section demonstrates the use of the system as a mapping tool, shedding new light on the settlement trends in the region through time. The final section of the article explores in greater depth some aspects of its potential in sophisticated spatial analysis.

scholarly journals Data-Specific Functions: A Comment on Kindel et al.

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob C. Fisher
Keyword(s):  
Data Analysis ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Best Practices ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Recent Article ◽  
Fragile Families ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Statistical Software ◽  
New Approach

In a recent article, Salganik et al. describe a new approach to managing survey data in service of the Fragile Families Challenge, which they call “treating metadata as data.” Although the approach that they present is a good first step, a more ambitious proposal could improve survey data analysis even more substantially. I recommend that data collection efforts distribute an open-source set of tools for working with a particular data set that I call data-specific functions. The goal of these functions is to codify best practices for working with the data in a set of functions for commonly used statistical software. These functions would be jointly developed by the users and distributers of the data. Building such functions would both shorten the learning curve for new users, and would improve the quality of the data, by making tacit knowledge about problems with the data explicit and easy to act on.

scholarly journals The Redistribution of Methods: On Intervention in Digital Social Research, Broadly Conceived

2012 ◽  
Vol 60 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 139-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noortje Marres
Keyword(s):  
Digital Technology ◽  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Online Tool ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Digital Environments ◽  
Digital Methods ◽  
Hyperlink Analysis

This paper contributes to debates about the implications of digital technology for social research by proposing the concept of the redistribution of methods. In the context of digitization, I argue, social research becomes noticeably a distributed accomplishment: online platforms, users, devices and informational practices actively contribute to the performance of digital social research. This also applies more specifically to social research methods, and this paper explores the phenomenon in relation to two specific digital methods, online network and textual analysis, arguing that sociological research stands much to gain from engaging with their distribution, both normatively and analytically speaking. I distinguish four predominant views on the redistribution of digital social methods: methods-as-usual, big methods, virtual methods and digital methods. Taking up this last notion, I propose that a redistributive understanding of social research opens up a new approach to the re-mediation of social methods in digital environments. I develop this argument through a discussion of two particular online research platforms: the Issue Crawler, a web-based platform for hyperlink analysis, and the Co-Word Machine, an online tool of textual analysis currently under development. Both these tools re-mediate existing social methods, and both, I argue, involve the attempt to render specific methodology critiques effective in the online realm, namely critiques of the authority effects implicit in citation analysis. As such, these methods offer ways for social research to intervene critically in digital social research, and more specifically, to endorse and actively pursue the redistribution of social methods online.

scholarly journals Detecting Fraudulent Interviewers by Improved Clustering Methods – The Case of Falsifications of Answers to Parts of a Questionnaire

2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 643-660 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel De Haas ◽  
Peter Winker
Keyword(s):  
Cluster Analysis ◽  
Data Quality ◽  
Survey Data ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Cluster Method ◽  
Clustering Methods ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Bootstrap Approach ◽  
Synthetic Datasets

Abstract Falsified interviews represent a serious threat to empirical research based on survey data. The identification of such cases is important to ensure data quality. Applying cluster analysis to a set of indicators helps to identify suspicious interviewers when a substantial share of all of their interviews are complete falsifications, as shown by previous research. This analysis is extended to the case when only a share of questions within all interviews provided by an interviewer is fabricated. The assessment is based on synthetic datasets with a priori set properties. These are constructed from a unique experimental dataset containing both real and fabricated data for each respondent. Such a bootstrap approach makes it possible to evaluate the robustness of the method when the share of fabricated answers per interview decreases. The results indicate a substantial loss of discriminatory power in the standard cluster analysis if the share of fabricated answers within an interview becomes small. Using a novel cluster method which allows imposing constraints on cluster sizes, performance can be improved, in particular when only few falsifiers are present. This new approach will help to increase the robustness of survey data by detecting potential falsifiers more reliably.

scholarly journals Agricultural research: traditions and innovations in sociological monographic study of countryside

2012 ◽  
Vol 51 (No. 6) ◽  
pp. 241-249
Author(s):  
H. Hudečková
Keyword(s):  
Social Factors ◽  
Agricultural Research ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Empirical Methods ◽  
Sociological Study ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Monographic Study ◽  
Classical Studies ◽  
Post War

This paper deals with the classic and contemporary sociological research of countryside in the Czech Republic, carried out with a monographic procedure. It mentions basic social factors and theoretical and methodological assumptions of the monographic study of the Czech and Moravian countryside until the 30&rsquo;s of the 20<sup>th</sup> century. It briefly introduces one of the classical studies Doln&iacute; Roveň. Then comes a part that provides information on post-war monographic research. Last part of the paper aims at present sociological study of countryside using the monographic procedure. It characterizes its new approach, different from the classic studies due to accepting interpretativistic paradigm and regarding empirical methods. This last chapter is based on empirical experience of the author of this paper.&nbsp;

scholarly journals La competencia partidista en las elecciones generales de 2015: factores contextuales y anclajes ideológicos

2019 ◽  
pp. 158
Author(s):  
Irene Delgado Sotillos
Keyword(s):  
Survey Data ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Electoral Studies ◽  
General Elections ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Political Scene

Este trabajo se sitúa en el contexto de los estudios electorales. Loscambios acontecidos en el escenario político español tras las elecciones generalesde 2015 demandan un análisis de los factores individuales del voto que han guiadolas orientaciones de los electores. Partiendo de un marco teórico explicativo generaly con análisis de datos de encuestas del Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicastratamos de aislar los determinantes de carácter contextual y el peso de los anclajesideológicos que han orientado el voto a los principales partidos de ámbito estatal.Los resultados muestran que tanto los factores a corto plazo como factores estructuraleshan sido tomados en consideración por los votantes para apoyar a las formacionespolíticas, generado una fuga de votos de los partidos tradicionales hacialas nuevas formaciones políticas, dentro de la estructura del marco ideológico.In the context of electoral studies, this article explores the changesthat took place in the Spanish political scene after the general elections of 2015.The analysis of the individual voting factors that guided the electoral behaviorstarts from a general theoretical framework, and examine survey data from theCenter for Sociological Research. It tries to isolate the determinants of contextualcharacters and the weight of the ideological anchors that have dominated the votefor the main parties. The results show that combination of both the short-termfactors and the long- term factors, where the ideology plays an important role,have conditioned the support to the new political formations generating an importantchange in the preferences of the voters but conditioned by the ideologicalframework.

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