Innovations in Federal Statistics

Innovations in Federal Statistics
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 151
Release: 2017-04-21
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 030945428X

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.

Adaptive Survey Design

Adaptive Survey Design
Author: Barry Schouten
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2017-07-28
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 1498767885

Adaptive survey designs (ASDs) provide a framework for data-driven tailoring of data collection procedures to different sample members, often for cost and bias reduction. People vary in how likely they are to respond and in how they respond. This variation leads to opportunities to selectively deploy design features in order to control both nonresponse and measurement errors. ASD aims at the optimal matching of design features and the characteristics of respondents given the survey budget. Such a goal is sensible, but ASD requires investment in more advanced technical systems and management infrastructure and asks for the collection of relevant auxiliary data. So what are current best practices in ASD? And is ASD worthwhile when the same auxiliary data are employed in the estimation afterwards? In this book, the authors provide answers to these questions, and much more.

Topics and Trends in Current Statistics Education Research

Topics and Trends in Current Statistics Education Research
Author: Gail Burrill
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2019-01-12
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9783030034719

This book focuses on international research in statistics education, providing a solid understanding of the challenges in learning statistics. It presents the teaching and learning of statistics in various contexts, including designed settings for young children, students in formal schooling, tertiary level students, and teacher professional development. The book describes research on what to teach and platforms for delivering content (curriculum), strategies on how to teach for deep understanding, and includes several chapters on developing conceptual understanding (pedagogy and technology), teacher knowledge and beliefs, and the challenges teachers and students face when they solve statistical problems (reasoning and thinking). This new research in the field offers critical insights for college instructors, classroom teachers, curriculum designers, researchers in mathematics and statistics education as well as policy makers and newcomers to the field of statistics education. Statistics has become one of the key areas of study in the modern world of information and big data. The dramatic increase in demand for learning statistics in all disciplines is accompanied by tremendous growth in research in statistics education. Increasingly, countries are teaching more quantitative reasoning and statistics at lower and lower grade levels within mathematics, science and across many content areas. Research has revealed the many challenges in helping learners develop statistical literacy, reasoning, and thinking, and new curricula and technology tools show promise in facilitating the achievement of these desired outcomes.

Encyclopedia of Survey Research Methods

Encyclopedia of Survey Research Methods
Author: Paul J. Lavrakas
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Total Pages: 1073
Release: 2008-09-12
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 150631788X

To the uninformed, surveys appear to be an easy type of research to design and conduct, but when students and professionals delve deeper, they encounter the vast complexities that the range and practice of survey methods present. To complicate matters, technology has rapidly affected the way surveys can be conducted; today, surveys are conducted via cell phone, the Internet, email, interactive voice response, and other technology-based modes. Thus, students, researchers, and professionals need both a comprehensive understanding of these complexities and a revised set of tools to meet the challenges. In conjunction with top survey researchers around the world and with Nielsen Media Research serving as the corporate sponsor, the Encyclopedia of Survey Research Methods presents state-of-the-art information and methodological examples from the field of survey research. Although there are other "how-to" guides and references texts on survey research, none is as comprehensive as this Encyclopedia, and none presents the material in such a focused and approachable manner. With more than 600 entries, this resource uses a Total Survey Error perspective that considers all aspects of possible survey error from a cost-benefit standpoint. Key Features Covers all major facets of survey research methodology, from selecting the sample design and the sampling frame, designing and pretesting the questionnaire, data collection, and data coding, to the thorny issues surrounding diminishing response rates, confidentiality, privacy, informed consent and other ethical issues, data weighting, and data analyses Presents a Reader′s Guide to organize entries around themes or specific topics and easily guide users to areas of interest Offers cross-referenced terms, a brief listing of Further Readings, and stable Web site URLs following most entries The Encyclopedia of Survey Research Methods is specifically written to appeal to beginning, intermediate, and advanced students, practitioners, researchers, consultants, and consumers of survey-based information.

Survey Data Collection and Integration

Survey Data Collection and Integration
Author: Cristina Davino
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 158
Release: 2012-10-22
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3642213081

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.

Federal Statistics, Multiple Data Sources, and Privacy Protection

Federal Statistics, Multiple Data Sources, and Privacy Protection
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 195
Release: 2018-01-27
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0309465370

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.

Applied Survey Data Analysis

Applied Survey Data Analysis
Author: Steven G. Heeringa
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 591
Release: 2017-07-12
Genre: Mathematics
ISBN: 1498761615

Highly recommended by the Journal of Official Statistics, The American Statistician, and other journals, Applied Survey Data Analysis, Second Edition provides an up-to-date overview of state-of-the-art approaches to the analysis of complex sample survey data. Building on the wealth of material on practical approaches to descriptive analysis and regression modeling from the first edition, this second edition expands the topics covered and presents more step-by-step examples of modern approaches to the analysis of survey data using the newest statistical software. Designed for readers working in a wide array of disciplines who use survey data in their work, this book continues to provide a useful framework for integrating more in-depth studies of the theory and methods of survey data analysis. An example-driven guide to the applied statistical analysis and interpretation of survey data, the second edition contains many new examples and practical exercises based on recent versions of real-world survey data sets. Although the authors continue to use Stata for most examples in the text, they also continue to offer SAS, SPSS, SUDAAN, R, WesVar, IVEware, and Mplus software code for replicating the examples on the book’s updated website.

Hard-to-Survey Populations

Hard-to-Survey Populations
Author: Roger Tourangeau
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 675
Release: 2014-08-28
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1107031354

Examines the different populations and settings that can make surveys hard to conduct and discusses methods to meet these challenges.