GESIS Guides

GESIS Survey Guides - Expert Knowledge for Your Survey Projects

The GESIS Survey Guides are part of a central service offered by GESIS to advise researchers on methodological questions regarding the planning and implementation of surveys. The articles in the Survey Guides provide a practice-oriented overview and initial recommendations for action on relevant aspects of survey planning and implementation that are frequently requested in consulting. The guides can be divided into four different areas: Recommendations and assistance on the survey process (“Survey Operations”), on the development of survey instruments (“Survey Instruments”), on survey statistics (“Survey Statistics”) and recommendations including checklists on the topic of open methodology (“Survey Documentation”).

GESIS Survey Guides by Topic

Survey Operations

GESIS Survey Guides on the subjects of survey modes, survey and fieldwork, interviewer effects, tendering and documentation, panel studies, paradata and data linkage as well as intercultural surveys.

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Survey Instruments

GESIS Survey Guides on the subjects of questionnaire construction, survey instruments, socio-demographic characteristics and quality assurance of survey instruments.

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Survey Statistics

GESIS Survey Guides on the topics of sampling in theory and practice, weighting, non-response bias and the imputation of survey data.

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Survey Documentation

GESIS Survey Guides on the documentation of survey instruments and the documentation of fieldwork.

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GESIS Survey Guides A - Z

Here you will find an overview of all GESIS Survey Guides.

Survey Guidelines von A - Z

About the GESIS Survey Guides

The GESIS Survey Guides undergo a non-blinded peer review with at least two internal or external GESIS reviewers before publication. This makes them suitable for teaching purposes. In addition, many of the guidelines are supplemented by additional materials such as slide sets, analysis codes, etc. 

Please note: The GESIS Survey Guides and additional materials are subject to a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC). Their content can therefore be distributed and made public for non-commercial purposes with attribution to the authors/publisher. The recommended citation method can be found in the respective articles.

Editor-in-Chief: Dr. Henning Silber

Associate Editors: Dr. Jessica Daikeler, Dr. Cornelia Neuert, Dr. Barbara Felderer

Editorial Assistant: Fabienne Kraemer

Founding Editor: Prof. Dr. Natalja Menold

Planning and conducting surveys:

Research Ethics and Data Protection:

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