GESIS Survey Guidelines
The GESIS Survey Guidelines are part of a central GESIS service for advising scientists on methodological issues related to the organization and implementation of surveys. The single contributions of the Survey Guidelines offer a practice-oriented overview as well as best-practice recommendations on relevant aspects of survey planning and implementation that are frequently requested in consulting. Thematically, the guidelines can be divided into four different areas: Recommendations and assistance on aspects concerning the survey process ("Survey Operations"), on the development of survey instruments ("Survey Instruments"), on aspects of survey statistics ("Survey Statistics"), and on "Open Methodology".
Modes of Data Collection |
Data Collection and Fieldwork |
Interviewer Effects and Training |
Tender and Documentation |
Panel Surveys |
Paradata and Data-Linkage |
Intercultural Surveys |
Quality Control of Survey Instruments |
Questionnaire Design |
Socio-Demographic Variables |
Sampling |
Weighting |
Nonresponse Bias |
Imputation of Missing Values |
Documentation Survey Instruments |
Documentation Survey Operations |
The GESIS Survey Guidelines are supplemented by additional materials (e.g., slide sets, checklists, analysis code) as well as references to related services and research.
Each Survey Guideline was subjected to a "non-blinded" peer review with at least two GESIS internal or external reviewers prior to publication.
The GESIS Survey Guidelines as well as additional materials are subject to a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC). The content of the GESIS Survey Guidelines and additional materials can therefore be distributed and made public for non-commercial purposes with attribution to the author(s)/the editor. A recommended citation of the Guidelines can be found in the individual contribution.
Further information can be found in the Introduction (1.03 MB). News regarding the GESIS Survey Guidelines are documented in our annual reports: Report Survey Guidelines 2019/ 2020 (105 kB) and the Report Survey Guidelines 2021 (82 kB).