Developments in Survey Research over the Past 60 Years: A Personal Perspective

Abstract

Many developments have occurred in the practice of survey sampling and survey methodology in the past 60 years or so. These developments have been partly driven by the emergence of computers and the continuous growth in computer power over the years and partly by the increasingly sophisticated demands from the users of survey data. The paper reviews these developments with a main emphasis on survey sampling issues for the design and analysis of social surveys. Design-based inference based on probability samples was the predominant approach in the early years, but over time, that predominance has been eroded by the need to employ model-dependent methods to deal with missing data and to satisfy analysts' demands for survey estimates that cannot be met with design-based methods. With the continuous decline in response rates that has occurred in recent years, much current research has focused on the use of non-probability samples and data collected from administrative records and web surveys.