ESM 595: Environmental Public Opinion and Survey
Design
Winter 2007
Professor: Sarah Anderson
Office: 4510 Bren Hall
Phone: 805-893-5887
Email:
Class meetings: Tuesdays, 10:30-12:10, Bren Hall 1510
Office
Hours: Tu/Th 3:30-4:30
Course Objectives
Survey research has become an
increasingly important tool to understand society. Researchers and the news
media use it to understand public opinion, policy analysts use it to predict
responses to policy change, and all sorts of organizations, both public and
private, use it to understand their clients. Some even claim that politicians
act based on poll results.
This course will consider many
aspects of survey research, both for those interested in collecting survey data
and for those who anticipate using such data to make decisions. The overall
goal of this course is to provide an introduction to the science and art of
survey design in the context of environmental public opinion. Since a survey
could often contribute greatly to the master’s projects or to a PhD
dissertation, the class is designed to deliver practical survey research
skills. Using several existing surveys on
environmental policy and attitudes, we will explore public opinion on the
environment and learn tools to extract information from surveys. Each week will then focus on a part of the
survey process from sampling to questionnaire design to data analysis and
presentation.
A class survey will help to
make the concepts of the course concrete. We will be designing and fielding a
short survey on environmental attitudes. In the first class, we will decide on
a topic for the survey and we will design the questions throughout the course.
After fielding the survey, we will analyze the data from the survey
Course Materials
Most of the reading from the
course will be taken from Pamela Alreck and Robert Settle’s text Survey Research Handbook. Additional
readings will be assigned and made available online.
Course
Requirements
You are expected to complete
all of the assigned reading before class, as lectures will build on rather than
reiterate reading material. There will be three short individual assignments. In addition, you will be expected to
contribute to the class survey by designing questions, critiquing questions,
fielding the survey, and entering the data. As a final group project, you will
analyze the data from our class survey and present your results in class and in
a short group paper.
Course Grades
Course grades will be based on individual assignments
(40%), participation in the class survey (20%), and your final project (40%).
Tentative due dates:
Assignment
1 – Jan. 15
Assignment 2 – Jan. 22
Assignment 3 – Feb. 26
Presentations
of findings – March 4 and 11
Course Outline and
Week 1: Survey Research and Data
Alreck
and Settle, Chapter 1
-History of Survey Research
-Where to find survey data
ICPSR
NES
GSS
National Longitudinal
Study
-What does environmental public
opinion look like?
Decide on topic of survey
Week 2: Study Design & Sampling
Alreck
and Settle, Chapters 2, 3
http://sequestration.mit.edu/pdf/key_findings.pdf
http://sequestration.mit.edu/pdf/methodology.pdf
-Hypothesis Construction
-Defining what you need to get
-Study Structure (single
cross-section, multiple cross sections, panel)
-Defining the population
-Sampling
-Response Rates
-Sampling Error
Decide on structure of our survey.
Decide on sample. Develop testable hypotheses.
First
Assignment Due: Find a survey, present results, tell us what else you
might have wanted to know, how you would change the survey
Week 3: Questionnaire Design
Alreck
and Settle, Chapters 4,5,6
-Priming
-Framing
-Item bias
-Order
-Scales
-Measuring strength of attitudes
Discuss questions for our survey
Second
Assignment Due: Describe the sampling procedure and response rates
from the poll you used in assignment one. Provide a critique of the poll.
Week 4: Topics in Polling: Contingent
Valuation and Experiments
John
C. Whitehead, “A practitioner’s primer on the contingent valuation method” pp.
66-80
Alreck
and Settle, Appendix B
Sniderman
and Carmines, pp.11-14 and 99-113
-Willingness to Pay Polling
-Experiments:
Do people really hate the environment and hide behind conservatism? Do people
really not care about global warming, but answer that they do because they feel
they should?
-Pre-testing
Draft
Survey Questions, Time to Discuss
Week 5: Collecting Data
Alreck
and Settle, Chapters 7,8
-Selecting a mode: face to face, telephone, mail,
internet
-Collecting
data – hiring, training and supervising interviewers, respondent incentives,
refusal conversion, interviewer effects
-Coding and data entry
-Building a codebook
Final
Survey Questions
Week 6: Data Analysis
Alreck
and Settle, Chapter 10
http://sequestration.mit.edu/pdf/2006_Graphic_Summary_Appendix.pdf
-Cross-tabs
-Correlations
-Hypthothesis testing
Alreck
and Settle, Chapter 11
-Presentation of data
-Graphical
-Tabular
Data
Due
Week 8: Writing Reports
Alreck
and Settle, Chapter 12
http://sequestration.mit.edu/pdf/LFEE_2007_01_WP.pdf
-Providing information about survey
methods
-Ethics
in survey research – protecting confidentiality, informing respondents,
reporting, archiving, effects of surveys on respondents and others (increased
topic interest/turnout, politicians)
Assignment
Due: Data Analysis from Existing Survey
Week 9: Presentations of Findings
Week 10: Presentations of Findings
Final
Paper Due