Luigi Fabbris - Böcker

Statistical surveys represent an important source of scientific knowledge and a valid decision support tool in many fields, from social studies to economics, market research, health studies, and others. Scientists have tackled most of the methodological issues concerning surveys and the scientific literature offers excellent proposals for planning and conducting surveys. Nevertheless, surveys often require the achievement of aims that either deviate from the methodology or do not have a specific solution at all.This book focuses on survey theory and applications, providing insight and innovative solutions to face problems in data collection and integration, complex sample design, opinion questionnaire design, and statistical estimation.Formal rigour and simple language, together with real-life examples, will make the book suitable to both practitioners involved in applied research and to academics interested in scientific developments in the survey field.

This book focuses on the theory and applications of statistical surveys, providing suggestions and innovative solutions for overcoming problems in real-life, practical scenarios. Topics covered include all the main issues from data collection to estimation.

The Italian university system, along the mainstream of the European higher education systems, is adopting efficiency and effectiveness as criteria for process programming and result managing. For this purpose, both the national system headed by the Ministry of Edu- tion, University and Research, and the universities, within their managerial autonomy, activated since the 1990s a systematic assessment of their research and teaching activities and of other services. The assessment on a large scale of aspects of the educational system started in Italy when the Ministry imposed in 1999 that the teaching of each course of Bachelor and Master programmes be evaluated by the student and that s- thetic marks be sent to a National Board for University System Evaluation (CNVSU) for comparative and intervention purposes. The compelling need to assess the course quality not only demolished the atavic distrust that part of the academics have had against the assessment of the teaching, but also started, in a concrete way, the participation of students to activities dedicated to them. Moreover, the widespread consciousness of teaching assessment, as a tool for empowering the higher education system, entered the Ministry and universities’ agenda. Even though the use of the course evaluations, for intervention purposes, still is limited to the most fanciful and fearless faculties and universities, the process has started and it will not be easy to circumvent.