Linking survey and social media data has gained popularity. However, obtaining consent from respondents to link social media is a known challenge. Using data from a nationally representative survey of the U.K. this study investigated whether respondents' a) activity frequency, b) activity variety and c) technical skills with smartphones are…

Not knowing the population size is a common problem in data-limited contexts. Drawing on work in Sierra Leone, this short take outlines a four-step solution to this problem: (1) estimate the population size using expert interviews; (2) verify estimates using interviews with participants sampled; (3) triangulate using secondary data; and (4)…

Conducting research among hard-to-reach populations is a difficult endeavor because some of their characteristics are known to be associated with survey nonresponse and panel attrition. In the case of the Parchemins study, which followed undocumented migrants over their process of regularization and during the first years of regularized life in…

A growing number of people live in apartments worldwide, and research into these contexts is key to the success of our cities. Recruiting apartment residents as research participants can be challenging, however, especially when using a case study approach. This research note outlines the participant recruitment method developed for case study…

How household-level data from censuses and surveys are analyzed to study household structure is an issue that has received little attention. The present study proposes a new methodological approach to address this gap. Specifically, we introduce the idea of the household configuration as a mathematical representation of observations from the…

Constant changes to COVID-19 restrictions have required adaptability from social scientists including responding to new challenges such as infiltration by bots. This research note presents unexpected encounters of bot infiltration and recruitment during survey data collection under pandemic conditions. The note draws from a household survey on a…

We describe the use of tablet computers with ESRI Survey123 for data collection in sociodemographic surveys applied to land use and cover change studies. Based on the administration of 716 questionnaires during the expedition carried out in 2022 in 64 rural communities along the Rio Negro River, in the Brazilian Amazon, we evaluate the advantages…

One question frequently included in surveys asks about respondents' earnings. As this information serves, for example, as a basis for evaluating policy interventions, it must be of high quality. This study aims to advance knowledge about possible measurement errors in earnings data and the potential of data linkage to improve substantive…

Although research on sensitive topics has produced a large body of knowledge on how to improve the quality of self-reported data, little is known regarding the sensitivity of offending questions, and much less is known regarding how topic sensitivity is affected by recall periods. In this study, we developed a multi-dimensional assessment of item…

This research note considers gendered risks within survey research, which, it argues, are a frequently overlooked aspect of this form of quantitative research. By reflecting on the process of conducting exit polls in South Africa, the research note highlights the importance of discussing the gendered practice of research and sexualized harassment…

The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) resulted in South Africa's shelter-in-place lockdown. South Africa is vulnerable to the negative outcomes of COVID-19 due to health systems inequalities, high prevalence of human immunodeficiency viruses, tuberculosis and the growing burden of non-communicable diseases. Conducting scientifically…

Free listing exercises are common and informative ways to explore shared bodies of knowledge and practice, and they can probe widely experienced phenomena in daily life. However, even with a representative sample, this method can suffer under common conditions in anthropological fieldwork: Respondents forget to list items, they fail to provide…

The aim of this research was to examine graduate thesis studies conducted in the field of special education in Turkey about special education teachers in terms of various variables. In the thesis scanning center of the Council of Higher Education Center (YOK), it was determined that 89 graduate thesis studies in the special education field were…

Respondent-driven sampling (RDS) is a survey method for hidden populations and, as such, it offers a suitable approach for sampling the homeless. Surprisingly, the practical use of RDS in surveying homeless populations has only sporadically been described in the professional literature so far, and the specifics of using RDS for sampling this group…

This study illustrates how the cognitive interviewing (CI) method can provide qualitative evidence of item, construct, and method bias in cross-cultural research. CI was conducted with participants from the Netherlands and Spain, who responded to quality-of-life (QoL) items included in international survey research projects. Qualitative findings…