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Asking Questions - The Definitive Guide To Questionnaire Design ...

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GLOSSARY 355<br />

most respondents have opinions on the issues and can answer the<br />

general questions. If most respondents have not formulated opinions<br />

in advance, inverted funnels, which ask the specific questions<br />

first, may be used. <strong>The</strong> inversion eliminates the basic advantage of<br />

funneling but helps the respondent consider various aspects of a<br />

topic before requiring a general opinion.<br />

General Social Survey (GSS) An omnibus nationwide survey conducted<br />

by NORC since 1972. It covers a wide variety of topics of<br />

interest to social scientists. <strong>The</strong> data from these surveys are publicly<br />

available through the Inter-University Consortium for Political and<br />

Social Research at the University of Michigan and are widely used<br />

for teaching and research purposes. A codebook giving question<br />

wording and response distributions for each year in which the questions<br />

were asked is available on line (www.icpsr.umich.edu/GSS/).<br />

group interviews Self-administered questionnaires where a single<br />

interviewer provides instructions and may present visual material<br />

to multiple respondents in a school classroom, a work place, or<br />

some other central location. Interviews with several members of a<br />

household would not normally be considered group interviews. <strong>The</strong><br />

term may also be used to describe focus group interviews, interviews<br />

in which six to fifteen people are brought together for a group discussion<br />

about a selected topic under the direction of a discussion<br />

leader. (See also self-administered questionnaires.)<br />

household (or family) composition, household enumeration or<br />

listing As most often used, household composition refers to information<br />

about the number of household members, their ages, sexes,<br />

and relation to one another. This information is obtained from a<br />

household enumeration or listing. Initials (or the first names) of<br />

household members are usually obtained so that specific questions<br />

can be asked about each member individually or so that one or<br />

more household members can be selected for further interviewing.<br />

A household may consist of only one person or of unrelated individuals.<br />

A family consists of two or more related individuals.

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