We advise on the development of sample designs for face-to-face, written and telephone surveys. Here we benefit from many years of experience, which enable us to develop an adequate sample design for any research problem, including the planning of the sample size.
We are also involved in sample designs for international comparative surveys and can draw on a repertoire of established as well as innovative methods and a wealth of experience.
Drawing of Telephone Samples
About 40 per cent of all interviews in market research in Germany are currently conducted by telephone. Since the end of the 1990s, a frame developed by GESIS (Gabler-Häder design) has prevailed in Germany as a selection frame, which contains both connections registered in the telephone directory and those not registered, which can be reached via a local network. This sampling frame is updated twice a year.
We draw samples from this frame for nationwide (if necessary also regional) surveys for research partners from academic social research.
Since a growing proportion of households can now only be reached by mobile phone, the sole use of this sampling frame is unlikely to cover adequately the entirety of private households in the future. Therefore, GESIS developed a sampling frame for mobile phone samples. This is also available for sampling.
This enables a dual-frame approach, in which both a fixed network and a mobile phone sample are used for a survey and the results can be combined by weighting.
Consultation Fee
We charge an expense allowance of 100 EUR per sampling, plus the currently applicable VAT. This includes dual-frame samples (combined samples from fixed network and mobile telephony) as well as subsequent draws for an ongoing survey.
Drawing of Complex Samples
Complex sampling includes both multi-stage selection procedures and sampling designs with unequal probabilities.The most common case is community sampling (PSUs) for population registration office samples. But also multi-stage school sampling etc. is complex sampling.
The implementation of complex sample designs, such as the drawing of municipalities for residents' registration offices, samples from (own) lists or sampling from several sampling frames can be commissioned from GESIS. Please note that especially in the case of very specific sampling frames, such as the selection of schools in a certain area, the sampling frame must be provided by the client. A more precise agreement on how the sampling is implemented will be made by the GESIS staff carrying out the work.
The scope and performance will be adjusted according to need. In the case of residents' registration office sampling, this includes: Planning of sample points by strata, allocation of the total sample to sample points, drawing of municipalities (not: sampling within municipalities).
Costs for Drawing Complex Samples
We charge an expense allowance of EUR 400 for the drawing of complex samples, plus the currently applicable VAT. The consultation on complex sample designs continues to be free of charge.