Factorial Survey Experiments - Paperback

by Katrin Auspurg (Author), Thomas Hinz (Author)

Filling a gap in the literature of the field, this first-of-its-kind book provides researchers with a practical guide to using the factorial survey method to assess respondents' beliefs about the world, judgment principles, or decision rules through multi-dimensional stimuli ("vignettes") that resemble real-life decision-making situations. Using insightful examples to illustrate their arguments, the authors guide researchers through all relevant steps, including how to set up the factorial experimental design (drawing samples of vignettes and respondents), how to handle the practical challenges that must be mastered when an experimental plan with many different treatments is embedded in a survey format, and how to deal with questions of data analysis. In addition to providing the "how-tos" of designing factorial survey experiments, the authors cover recent developments of similar methods, such as conjoint analyses, choice experiments, and more advanced statistical tools.

Author Biography

Katrin Auspurg currently holds a full professorship in sociology (area quantitative empirical research) at the Department of Social Sciences at the Goethe University Frankfurt/Main, Germany. She earned her PhD degree at the University of Konstanz. Since 2012, Auspurg has been a research associate at the Institute for Social & Economic Research (ISER), University of Essex. Her main research interests are in survey research methods, analytical sociology, and social inequalities.

Thomas Hinz is currently a full professor at the Department of Sociology and History at the University of Konstanz, Germany. Formerly, he worked at the University of Munich and the University of Rostock. Hinz was a fellow at the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies (AICGS) of Johns Hopkins University and visiting scholar at the Center for Research on Inequalities and the Life Course (CIQLE) at Yale University. From 2006 to 2010, he was principal investigator in the research project "The Factorial Survey as a Method for Measuring Attitudes in Population Surveys" (funded by the German Research Foundation; part of the Priority Programme on Survey Methodology).