CALL FOR INVITED PAPERS

International Conference on Survey Methods in Multinational,

Multiregional and Multicultural Contexts (3MC)

June 25 – 29, 2008

Berlin, Germany

As part of an ongoing effort to promote quality in multipopulation surveys and to raise the level of methodological expertise in various applied fields of comparative survey research, an International Conference on Survey Methods in Multinational, Multiregional and Multicultural Contexts will be held June 25 – 29, 2008 in Berlin, Germany.

 

This conference will bring together researchers and survey practitioners concerned with survey methodology and practice in comparative contexts. It will provide a unique opportunity to discuss and present research that contributes to our understanding of survey needs and methods in cross-cultural and cross-national contexts. Conference contributions will help document current best practices and stimulate new ideas for further research and development.

We invite all interested researchers and practitioners to submit abstracts to be considered for Invited Papers. An accompanying edited volume presenting state-of-the-art research and practice will be published with John Wiley & Sons. The expectation is that Invited Papers become chapters in the edited volume.

Abstracts should be between 700– 1000 words. The deadline for submitting abstracts is Friday, 2 March, 2007.  They can be submitted at the CSDI * website (http://www.csdi-workshop.org); there you will find a link to the 2008 3MC conference under EVENTS.

If you have questions related to submitting an abstract, please contact Janet Harkness at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, jharkness2@unl.edu and copy to eu-centre@zuma-mannheim.de.

Unless advised otherwise, we will pass on abstracts which cannot be accepted as Invited Papers to have them considered as Contributed Papers at the conference. The first individual call for Contributed Papers at the conference will follow in late spring, 2007.

*CSDI is the acronym for the International Workshop for Comparative Survey Design and Implementation, which heads the initiative for this conference. CSDI meets every year for an annual workshop.  More information is available on the CSDI website (see above).

PRELIMINARY OUTLINE OF CONFERENCE SESSIONS

The following is a list of possible topics under large headings planned for the conference sessions and the monograph. These may be expanded and re-organized, depending on submissions. Some overlap of sub-themes at this preliminary stage is intentional. Those submitting abstracts are not required to indicate where they think their abstract might “fit”.

Theory and Methodology for Comparative Studies

• Theories of comparability
• Evidence-based approaches to comparability

 Models of Study Designs, Organizations, and Goals

• social surveys:  values, opinions, behaviors
• establishment surveys
• cohort studies and panels
• labor force surveys
• short term economic indicators
• marketing surveys
• social indicators
• aggregation of regional data
• human capital and competencies
• health surveys
• cognition, education and personality instruments
• international web studies
• mandatory surveys

 Multilingual, Multicultural Issues

• global measurement and local cultures
• institutions, gatekeepers, respondents
• communication across and between cultures
• language and measurement
• instrument comparability
• written and oral forms of instrument translation
• developing and testing multilingual instruments
• forms of instrument adaptation
• monitoring translation quality
• official version approval

 Instrument Design

• instrument design models
• instrument development and pretesting strategies
• accommodating language and culture in questionnaire design
  • question content and format,
  • question meaning and context
  • response processes; response, disclosure and culture
  • data collection modes and design
  • visualization, navigation and presentation

 Study Implementation, Quality and Improvement

• quality assurance and quality control
• survey operations and error structures (process data)
• infrastructures and management issues
• external and internal design tensions
• standardization and local realizations (what can vary and what cannot)
• input and output harmonization procedures
• assessing survey measurement capability
• sampling
• expertise and standards
• applications of ISO standard on market opinion and social research
• resources and funding (studies, monitoring, and methods)
• data capture and data processing
  • coding
  • estimation and weighting
  • editing and imputation

 Knowledge Management and Dissemination

• knowledge management in surveys
• documentation as design and process quality tool
• classifications
• survey process data
• metadata, paradata, context data
• archives and databases
  • dissemination
  • public use data files

 Analysis and Validation

• measurement strategies
• measurement difficulties
• measurement models
• units of analysis
• bias and error
• house effects (countries and houses)
• response conversion
• secondary analysis and analysts
• meta-analysis

 Data Collection in Complex Comparative Contexts

• organizing and building fielding structures
• ethics
• recruiting, assigning, and training interviewers
• sample management
• collecting data
  • nomadic populations
  • rural populations
  • undocumented populations and accommodations
  • conflict-torn and fragile states
  • ethnic minority populations
  • populations on reservations, in refugee camps, etc.

 Data Collection Programs and Surveys and Data Access in Developing Countries

• data access
• capacity-building
• educational indicators
• health indicators
• economic indicators
• social indicators
• epidemiological studies
• governance indicators
• political indicators
• attitudinal indicators
• price comparison indicators
• using informational databases

 CONFERENCE ORGANIZING COMMITTEE

 

Siobhan Carey                                                            Lars Lyberg

Department for International Development                     Statistics Sweden

London, UK                                                                 Stockholm, Sweden

Brad Edwards                                                             Peter Ph Mohler

Westat, Inc.                                                                  ZUMA

Rockville, USA                                                             Mannheim, Germany

Janet Harkness (Chair)                                             Beth-Ellen Pennell

University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, USA              University of Michigan

and ZUMA, Mannheim, Germany                                 Ann Arbor, USA

Timothy Johnson                                                        Tom W. Smith

Survey Research Laboratory, University of                    National Opinion Research Center at

Illinois at Chicago                                                          the University of Chicago

Chicago, USA                                                              Chicago, USA

Denise Lievesley                                                       Fons van de Vijver

Health and Social Care Information Centre                    Tilburg University

UK Department of Health                                             Tilburg, Netherlands

Leeds, UK

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Christof Wolf
Sprecher der Sektion 
Methoden der Empirischen Sozialforschung der 
Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie

Tel. 0621 1246-153, -197