Tom W. Smith specializes in the study of societal change in comparative perspective. He is director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Society at NORC, University of Chicago. Since 1980, he has been a principal investigator of the National Data Program for the Social Sciences and director of its General Social Survey (GSS).He is also cofounder of the International Social Survey Program (ISSP). It has conducted an international survey annually since 1985 and has involved 60 nations. He was Secretary General of ISSP in 1997–2003.Smith has taught at Purdue University, Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, Tel Aviv University, and the University of Cologne.He was awarded the 2000 and 2003 Innovators Awards of the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR), the 2002 AAPOR Award for Exceptionally Distinguished Achievement, and the 2013 AAPOR Book Award as coeditor of Multinational, Multicultural, and Multiregional Survey Methods.

This exciting new handbook provides a comprehensive guide to conducting survey research studies.  Authored by a distinguished set of experts from across the globe, chapters cover all phases of survey projects—from conceiving, designing and planning, through sampling, measurement, and data collection, to post-fieldwork data processing, data augmentation, and quality assessment.  Extensive attention to multi-national or cross-cultural survey projects is a special asset:  both challenges to comparability in such studies, and current practices to achieving it in vital domains including sampling, translation, and harmonization of data over space and time, are treated in depth.

• Part I: Basic Principles1. Introduction - Yang-chih Fu, Dominique Joye, Tom W. Smith and Christof Wolf2. Survey standards - Tom W. Smith 3. Total survey error: a paradigm for survey methodology - Lars E. Lyberg and Herbert F. Weisberg 4. Challenges of comparative survey research - Timothy P. Johnson and Michael Braun Part II: Surveys and Societies5. Surveys and society - Claire Durand 6. Defining and assessing survey climate - Geert Loosveldt and Dominique Joye 7. The Ethical issues of survey and market research - Kathy Joe, Finn Raben and Adam Phillips8. Observations on the historical development of polling - Kathleen A. Frankovic Part III: Planning a Survey9. Research question and designs for survey research - Ben Jann and Thomas Hinz 10. Total survey error paradigm: : Theory and Practice - Paul P. Biemer 11. Survey mode or survey modes? - Edith de Leeuw and Jernej Berzelak 12. Surveying in multi-cultural and multi-national contexts - Beth-Ellen Pennell and Kristen Cibelli-Hibben 13. Surveys in societies in turmoil - Zeina N. Mneimneh, Beth-Ellen Pennell, Jennifer Kelley and Kristen Cibelli-Hibben Part IV: Measurement14. What does Measurement Mean in a Survey Context? - Jaak Billiet 15. Cognitive models of answering processes - Kristen Miller and Gordon B. Willis16. Designing questions and questionnaires - Jolene D. Smyth 17. Creating a good question: how to use cumulative experience - Melanie Revilla, Diana Zavala-Rojas and Willem Saris18. Designing a mixed-mode survey - Don A. Dillman and Michelle L. Edwards 19. The Translation of Measurement Instruments for Cross-cultural Surveys - Dorothée Behr and Kuniaki Shishido 20. When Translation is not Enough: Background Variables in Comparative Surveys - Silke Schneider, Dominique Joye and Christof WolfPart V: Sampling21. Basics of sampling for survey research - Yves Tillé and Alina Matei22. Nonprobability sampling - Vasja Vehovar, Vera Toepoel and Stephanie Steinmetz23. Special challenges of sampling for comparative surveys - Siegfried Gabler and Sabine Häder Part VI: Data Collection24. Questionnaire pretesting - Gordon B. Willis 25. Survey fieldwork - Annelies G. Blom 26. Responsive and adaptive designs - François Laflamme and James Wagner 27. Unit nonresponse - Ineke A. L. Stoop 28. Incentives as a possible measure to increase response rates - Michèle Ernst Stähli and Dominique Joye Part VII: Preparing Data for Use29. Documenting Survey Data Across the Life Cycle - Mary Vardigan, Peter Granda and Lynette Hoelter30. Weighting: principles and practicalities - Pierre Lavallée and Jean-François Beaumont 31. Analysis of data from stratified and clustered surveys - Stephanie Eckman and Brady T. West 32. Analytical Potential Versus Data Confidentiality – Finding the Optimal Balance - Heike Wirth 33. Harmonizing Survey Questions Between Cultures and Over Time - Christof Wolf, Silke L. Schneider, Dorothée Behr and Dominique JoyePart VIII: Assessing and Improving Data Quality34. Survey data quality and measurement precision - Duane F. Alwin 35. Nonresponse error: detection and correction - Jelke Bethlehem and Barry Schouten 36. Response styles in surveys: understanding their causes and mitigating their impact - Caroline Roberts37. Dealing with missing values - Martin Spiess 38. Another Look at Survey Data Quality - Victor Thiessen and Jörg Blasius 39. Assessment of cross-cultural comparability - Jan Cieciuch, Eldad Davidov, Peter Schmidt and René AlgesheimerPart IX: Further Issues40. Data preservation, secondary analysis, and replication: learning from existing data - Lynette Hoelter, Amy Pienta and Jared Lyle41. Record linkage - Rainer Schnell 42. Supplementing cross-national surveys with contextual data - Jessica Fortin-Rittberger, David Howell, Stephen Quinlan and Bojan Todosijevic43. The Globalization of surveys - Tom W. Smith and Yang-chih Fu