Robert M. Groves – författare

It is easy to underestimate how little was known about crimes and victims before the findings of the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) became common wisdom. In the late 1960s, knowledge of crimes and their victims came largely from reports filed by local police agencies as part of the Federal Bureau of Investigation''s (FBI) Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) system, as well as from studies of the files held by individual police departments. Criminologists understood that there existed a "dark figure" of crime consisting of events not reported to the police. However, over the course of the last decade, the effectiveness of the NCVS has been undermined by the demands of conducting an increasingly expensive survey in an effectively flat-line budgetary environment. Surveying Victims: Options for Conducting the National Crime Victimization Survey, reviews the programs of the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS.) Specifically, it explores alternative options for conducting the NCVS, which is the largest BJS program. This book describes various design possibilities and their implications relative to three basic goals; flexibility, in terms of both content and analysis; utility for gathering information on crimes that are not well reported to police; and small-domain estimation, including providing information on states or localities. This book finds that, as currently configured and funded, the NCVS is not achieving and cannot achieve BJS''s mandated goal to "collect and analyze data that will serve as a continuous indication of the incidence and attributes of crime." Accordingly, Surveying Victims recommends that BJS be afforded the budgetary resources necessary to generate accurate measure of victimization.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) of the U.S. Department of Justice is one of the smallest of the U.S. principal statistical agencies but shoulders one of the most expansive and detailed legal mandates among those agencies. Ensuring the Quality, Credibility, and Relevance of U.S. Justice Statistics examines the full range of BJS programs and suggests priorities for data collection.BJS''s data collection portfolio is a solid body of work, well justified by public information needs or legal requirements and a commendable effort to meet its broad mandate given less-than-commensurate fiscal resources. The book identifies some major gaps in the substantive coverage of BJS data, but notes that filling those gaps would require increased and sustained support in terms of staff and fiscal resources.In suggesting strategic goals for BJS, the book argues that the bureau''s foremost goal should be to establish and maintain a strong position of independence. To avoid structural or political interference in BJS work, the report suggests changing the administrative placement of BJS within the Justice Department and making the BJS directorship a fixed-term appointment.In its thirtieth year, BJS can look back on a solid body of accomplishment; this book suggests further directions for improvement to give the nation the justice statistics—and the BJS—that it deserves.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) of the U.S. Department of Justice is one of the smallest of the U.S. principal statistical agencies but shoulders one of the most expansive and detailed legal mandates among those agencies. Ensuring the Quality, Credibility, and Relevance of U.S. Justice Statistics examines the full range of BJS programs and suggests priorities for data collection.BJS''s data collection portfolio is a solid body of work, well justified by public information needs or legal requirements and a commendable effort to meet its broad mandate given less-than-commensurate fiscal resources. The book identifies some major gaps in the substantive coverage of BJS data, but notes that filling those gaps would require increased and sustained support in terms of staff and fiscal resources.In suggesting strategic goals for BJS, the book argues that the bureau''s foremost goal should be to establish and maintain a strong position of independence. To avoid structural or political interference in BJS work, the report suggests changing the administrative placement of BJS within the Justice Department and making the BJS directorship a fixed-term appointment.In its thirtieth year, BJS can look back on a solid body of accomplishment; this book suggests further directions for improvement to give the nation the justice statistics—and the BJS—that it deserves.

It is easy to underestimate how little was known about crimes and victims before the findings of the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) became common wisdom. In the late 1960s, knowledge of crimes and their victims came largely from reports filed by local police agencies as part of the Federal Bureau of Investigation''s (FBI) Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) system, as well as from studies of the files held by individual police departments. Criminologists understood that there existed a "dark figure" of crime consisting of events not reported to the police. However, over the course of the last decade, the effectiveness of the NCVS has been undermined by the demands of conducting an increasingly expensive survey in an effectively flat-line budgetary environment. Surveying Victims: Options for Conducting the National Crime Victimization Survey, reviews the programs of the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS.) Specifically, it explores alternative options for conducting the NCVS, which is the largest BJS program. This book describes various design possibilities and their implications relative to three basic goals; flexibility, in terms of both content and analysis; utility for gathering information on crimes that are not well reported to police; and small-domain estimation, including providing information on states or localities. This book finds that, as currently configured and funded, the NCVS is not achieving and cannot achieve BJS''s mandated goal to "collect and analyze data that will serve as a continuous indication of the incidence and attributes of crime." Accordingly, Surveying Victims recommends that BJS be afforded the budgetary resources necessary to generate accurate measure of victimization.

Federal government statistics provide critical information to the country and serve a key role in a democracy. For decades, sample surveys with instruments carefully designed for particular data needs have been one of the primary methods for collecting data for federal statistics. However, the costs of conducting such surveys have been increasing while response rates have been declining, and many surveys are not able to fulfill growing demands for more timely information and for more detailed information at state and local levels.

Innovations in Federal Statistics examines the opportunities and risks of using government administrative and private sector data sources to foster a paradigm shift in federal statistical programs that would combine diverse data sources in a secure manner to enhance federal statistics. This first publication of a two-part series discusses the challenges faced by the federal statistical system and the foundational elements needed for a new paradigm.

The environment for obtaining information and providing statistical data for policy makers and the public has changed significantly in the past decade, raising questions about the fundamental survey paradigm that underlies federal statistics. New data sources provide opportunities to develop a new paradigm that can improve timeliness, geographic or subpopulation detail, and statistical efficiency. It also has the potential to reduce the costs of producing federal statistics.

The panel''s first report described federal statistical agencies'' current paradigm, which relies heavily on sample surveys for producing national statistics, and challenges agencies are facing; the legal frameworks and mechanisms for protecting the privacy and confidentiality of statistical data and for providing researchers access to data, and challenges to those frameworks and mechanisms; and statistical agencies access to alternative sources of data. The panel recommended a new approach for federal statistical programs that would combine diverse data sources from government and private sector sources and the creation of a new entity that would provide the foundational elements needed for this new approach, including legal authority to access data and protect privacy.

This second of the panel''s two reports builds on the analysis, conclusions, and recommendations in the first one. This report assesses alternative methods for implementing a new approach that would combine diverse data sources from government and private sector sources, including describing statistical models for combining data from multiple sources; examining statistical and computer science approaches that foster privacy protections; evaluating frameworks for assessing the quality and utility of alternative data sources; and various models for implementing the recommended new entity. Together, the two reports offer ideas and recommendations to help federal statistical agencies examine and evaluate data from alternative sources and then combine them as appropriate to provide the country with more timely, actionable, and useful information for policy makers, businesses, and individuals.

Historically, the U.S. national data infrastructure has relied on the operations of the federal statistical system and the data assets that it holds. Throughout the 20th century, federal statistical agencies aggregated survey responses of households and businesses to produce information about the nation and diverse subpopulations. The statistics created from such surveys provide most of what people know about the well-being of society, including health, education, employment, safety, housing, and food security. The surveys also contribute to an infrastructure for empirical social- and economic-sciences research. Research using survey-response data, with strict privacy protections, led to important discoveries about the causes and consequences of important societal challenges and also informed policymakers. Like other infrastructure, people can easily take these essential statistics for granted. Only when they are threatened do people recognize the need to protect them.

Toward a 21st Century National Data Infrastructure: Mobilizing Information for the Common Good develops a vision for a new data infrastructure for national statistics and social and economic research in the 21st century. This report describes how the country can improve the statistical information so critical to shaping the nation''s future, by mobilizing data assets and blending them with existing survey data.

"Survey Errors and Survey Costs is a well-written, well-presented, and highly readable text that should be on every error-conscious statistician’s bookshelf. Any courses that cover the theory and design of surveys should certainly have Survey Errors and Survey Costs on their reading lists." –Phil Edwards MEL, Aston University Science Park, UK Review in The Statistician, Vol. 40, No. 3, 1991

"This volume is an extremely valuable contribution to survey methodology. It has many virtues: First, it provides a framework in which survey errors can be segregated by sources. Second, Groves has skillfully synthesized existing knowledge, bringing together in an easily accessible form empirical knowledge from a variety of sources. Third, he has managed to integrate into a common framework the contributions of several disciplines. For example, the work of psychometricians and cognitive psychologists is made relevant to the research of econometricians as well as the field experience of sociologists. Finally, but not least, Groves has managed to present all this in a style that is accessible to a wide variety of readers ranging from survey specialists to policymakers." –Peter H. Rossi University of Massachusetts at Amherst Review in Journal of Official Statistics, January 1991

The Wiley-Interscience Paperback Series consists of selected books that have been made more accessible to consumers in an effort to increase global appeal and general circulation. With these new unabridged softcover volumes, Wiley hopes to extend the lives of these works by making them available to future generations of statisticians, mathematicians, and scientists.

"This book will be an aid to survey statisticians and to research workers who must work with survey data." –Short Book Reviews, International Statistical Institute

Measurement Errors in Surveys documents the current state of the field, reports new research findings, and promotes interdisciplinary exchanges in modeling, assessing, and reducing measurement errors in surveys. Providing a fundamental approach to measurement errors, the book features sections on the questionnaire, respondents and responses, interviewers and other means of data collection, the respondent-interviewer relationship, and the effects of measurement errors on estimation and data analysis.

"The book makes a valuable contribution by synthesizing current research and identifying areas for future investigation for each aspect of the survey process." —Journal of the American Statistical Association

"Overall, the high quality of the text material is matched by the quality of writing . . ." —Public Opinion Quarterly

". . . it should find an audience everywhere surveys are being conducted." —Technometrics

This new edition of Survey Methodology continues to provide a state-of-the-science presentation of essential survey methodology topics and techniques. The volume''s six world-renowned authors have updated this Second Edition to present newly emerging approaches to survey research and provide more comprehensive coverage of the major considerations in designing and conducting a sample survey.

Key topics in survey methodology are clearly explained in the book''s chapters, with coverage including sampling frame evaluation, sample design, development of questionnaires, evaluation of questions, alternative modes of data collection, interviewing, nonresponse, post-collection processing of survey data, and practices for maintaining scientific integrity. Acknowledging the growing advances in research and technology, the Second Edition features:

New scientific insight on the relationship between nonresponse rates and nonresponse errors

Restructured discussion of ethical issues in survey research, emphasizing the growing research results on privacy, informed consent, and confidentiality issues

The latest research findings on effective questionnaire development techniques

The addition of 50% more exercises at the end of each chapter, illustrating basic principles of survey design

An expanded FAQ chapter that addresses the concerns that accompany newly established methods

Providing valuable and informative perspectives on the most modern methods in the field, Survey Methodology, Second Edition is an ideal book for survey research courses at the upper-undergraduate and graduate levels. It is also an indispensable reference for practicing survey methodologists and any professional who employs survey research methods.

"The book makes a valuable contribution by synthesizing current research and identifying areas for future investigation for each aspect of the survey process." —Journal of the American Statistical Association

"Overall, the high quality of the text material is matched by the quality of writing . . ." —Public Opinion Quarterly

". . . it should find an audience everywhere surveys are being conducted." —Technometrics

This new edition of Survey Methodology continues to provide a state-of-the-science presentation of essential survey methodology topics and techniques. The volume''s six world-renowned authors have updated this Second Edition to present newly emerging approaches to survey research and provide more comprehensive coverage of the major considerations in designing and conducting a sample survey.

Key topics in survey methodology are clearly explained in the book''s chapters, with coverage including sampling frame evaluation, sample design, development of questionnaires, evaluation of questions, alternative modes of data collection, interviewing, nonresponse, post-collection processing of survey data, and practices for maintaining scientific integrity. Acknowledging the growing advances in research and technology, the Second Edition features:

New scientific insight on the relationship between nonresponse rates and nonresponse errors

Restructured discussion of ethical issues in survey research, emphasizing the growing research results on privacy, informed consent, and confidentiality issues

The latest research findings on effective questionnaire development techniques

The addition of 50% more exercises at the end of each chapter, illustrating basic principles of survey design

An expanded FAQ chapter that addresses the concerns that accompany newly established methods

Providing valuable and informative perspectives on the most modern methods in the field, Survey Methodology, Second Edition is an ideal book for survey research courses at the upper-undergraduate and graduate levels. It is also an indispensable reference for practicing survey methodologists and any professional who employs survey research methods.