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The European Survey Research Association (ESRA) was founded in 2005 to provide coordination in the field of
Survey
Survey may refer to:
Statistics and human research
* Statistical survey, a method for collecting quantitative information about items in a population
* Survey (human research), including opinion polls
Spatial measurement
* Surveying, the techniq ...
Research in
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
. According to the website, ESRA's main goal is to encourage communication between
methodologist
In its most common sense, methodology is the study of research methods. However, the term can also refer to the methods themselves or to the philosophical discussion of associated background assumptions. A method is a structured procedure for bri ...
s and researchers in substantive fields such as
sociology
Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical ...
,
psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...
,
political science
Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...
, and other disciplines employing survey data. Its main two activities are the biannual
conference
A conference is a meeting of two or more experts to discuss and exchange opinions or new information about a particular topic.
Conferences can be used as a form of group decision-making, although discussion, not always decisions, are the main p ...
s on
survey
Survey may refer to:
Statistics and human research
* Statistical survey, a method for collecting quantitative information about items in a population
* Survey (human research), including opinion polls
Spatial measurement
* Surveying, the techniq ...
research, and the
open access journal
Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 definition), or libre op ...
Survey Research Methods (SRM).
Established in January 2007, Survey Research Methods (SRM) is the official journal of the European Survey Research Association. This young
peer-reviewed journal
An academic journal or scholarly journal is a periodical publication in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as permanent and transparent forums for the presentation, scrutiny, and d ...
aims to be a high quality scientific publication that will be of interest to researchers in all disciplines involved in the design, implementation and analysis of
statistical survey
Survey methodology is "the study of survey methods".
As a field of applied statistics concentrating on human-research surveys, survey methodology studies the sampling of individual units from a population and associated techniques of survey da ...
s. The journal is published electronically with free and open access via the internet. The first issue was published 31 January 2007, and contained articles dealing with topics such as survey
nonresponse
Participation bias or non-response bias is a phenomenon in which the results of elections, studies, polls, etc. become non-representative because the participants disproportionately possess certain traits which affect the outcome. These traits mea ...
, the measurement of
social capital
Social capital is "the networks of relationships among people who live and work in a particular society, enabling that society to function effectively". It involves the effective functioning of social groups through interpersonal relationships ...
, the quality of survey questions, and cross-cultural research. The current editors of SRM are Jaak Billiet of the Catholic University in Leuven, Belgium, and Ulrich Kohler of the
University of Potsdam
The University of Potsdam is a public university in Potsdam, capital of the state of Brandenburg, Germany. It is mainly situated across three campuses in the city. Some faculty buildings are part of the New Palace of Sanssouci which is known ...