Survey Research

I am currently in the process of designing a survey on financial and billing information for the Indiana State Bar Association (ISBA).  In preparation for this task, I have read and reviewed lots of surveys by bar associations in other jurisdictions.  There are a surprising number, often conducted by local academics (I blogged about a really terrific survey of Pittsburgh lawyers here). 

What I lack, however, is a good reference guide for interpreting survey data, particularly a methods book or article that discusses how to check for a representative sample and various weighting techniques for either correcting sample bias or imputing missing values based on known characteristics of the population (information I have because the survey is sponsored by the ISBA). 

Any suggestions in the comments or by email would be greatly appreciated.

Comments

[SQA]

For downloadabale questionnaires you might want to check out the Survey Questionniare Archive at: http://www.cadsr.udel.edu/sqa

The Survey Questionnaire Archive is an open collection of survey questionnaires used in social sciences and public policy making.

The archive is created, hosted and maintained by the Center for Applied Demography & Survey Research at the University of Delaware.

This digital collection allows users to browse, search, store and share survey instruments over the web.

The goal of the archive is to collect, capture, disseminate and preserve a wide variety of survey instruments.

[Tracy Lightcap]

All of these are good. I would add:

William Williams. 1978. A Sampler on Sampling. John Wiley.

This is a really good book including many examples of the intricacies - and there are some - of sample design and estimator selection attendent thereunto. It's out of print, but most big college libraries have it. Completely understandable by regular humans.

Frank Yates. 1949. Sampling Methods for Censuses and Surveys.

Ok, it's old. But it also has some of the cleverest sampling designs extant in it. It is also easy to understand. I have a 100 page excerpt on my bookshelf since it is also out of print. The schemes for sampling in India are just terrific!

[Josh]

Prof. Henderson,

Currently I am enrolled at Marquette University Law School and am taking a survey methodology workshop this semester with Prof. Daniel Blinka and Adjunct Prof. Ramesh Sachdeva. In this class, we have gone over several pieces of literatutre that may be helpful. Below is a list. Hope it is helpful!

Shari Seidman Diamond's "Reference Guide on Survey Research"

David H. Kaye & David A. Freedman "Reference Guide on Statistics

Pamela L. Alreck & Robert B. Settle "The Survey Research Handbook"

James D. Wright, Peter H. Rossi, and Andy Anderson (eds.) "Handbook of Survey Research"
Note the section on "Sampling Theory" by Martin Frankel in the Handbook of Survey Research