Sociology 699J

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Surveys in Developing Countries

This research methods seminar will review the process of fielding a social science survey in developing countries. Special emphasis will be placed on questionnaire construction in a variety of topic areas often included in developing country surveys. Although our specific focus is on developing country surveys, most of the issues we consider are also relevant for U.S. and other developed country surveys.

Several existing major surveys will be reviewed for alternative research designs. A practical objective of the seminar will be to help design the instructors' 2004 survey of 40,000 households in India that will be fielded as

• Human Development Profile for India - II, a resurvey of the 1994 HDPI.

• the World Bank's Living Standard Measurement Surveys (LSMS), and
• the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS).

Two papers will be required for the seminar. The first focuses on a topic area and reviews all the possibilities in questionnaire design resulting in a specific recommendation for HDPI-II. The second reviews one selected survey and critiques that survey for questionnaire and research design.

Readings will be from selected articles and from Margaret E. Grosh and Paul Glewwe (eds.), Designing Household Survey Questionnaires for Developing Countries: Lessons from Fifteen Years of the Living Standards Measurement Study. Washington, The World Bank, 2000.

The home page for this course is: http://www.vanneman.umd.edu/socy699j/default.html