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The Problem with Survey Research makes a case against survey research as a primary source of reliable information. George Beam argues that all survey research instruments, all types of asking--including polls, face-to-face interviews, and focus groups--produce unreliable and potentially inaccurate results. Because those who rely on survey research only see answers to questions, it is impossible for them, or anyone else, to evaluate the results. They cannot know if the answers correspond to respondents' actual behaviors (objective phenomena) or to their true beliefs and opinions (subjective phenomena). Reliable information can only be acquired by observation, experimentation, multiple sources of data, formal model building and testing, document analysis, and comparison.

In fifteen chapters divided into six parts--Ubiquity of Survey Research, The Problem, Asking Instruments, Asking Settings, Askers, and Proper Methods and Research Designs--The Problem with Survey Research demonstrates how asking instruments, settings in which asking and answering take place, and survey researchers themselves skew results and thereby make answers unreliable. The last two chapters and appendices examine observation, other methods of data collection and research designs that may produce accurate or correct information, and shows how reliance on survey research can be overcome, and must be.

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CHOICE Review

A full-throated, high decibel, root and branch assault on surveys (actually, any inference based on respondents' answers). Note that the book's title is "The Problem with ...," not "Some Problems with...." Beam, a professor of marketing (Univ. of Illinois at Chicago), does not pretend to be fair (p. xvi)--and isn't. The argument rests on a bold proposition: "Those who rely on survey research ... have only answers to questions, and this means it is impossible (sic) for them, or anyone else, to know whether or not one or more answers are correct." From this axiom he draws remarkable conclusions; e.g., people will be misinformed about almost every (sic) important topic (p. xviii); one should use "Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging to study opinions" (p. xvii); "Scientists don't ask ... [they] observe" (p. 16) (a surprise for medical researchers); and so on. The basic flaw--there are others--is that the author jumps from parts to whole. That some surveys are flawed (and they are) does not mean all surveys are bad. Beam assiduously avoids the question of "how much." A lot of babies are gurgling down the drain. Summing Up: Optional. Professionals/practitioners. J. A. Davis National Opinion Research Center

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George Beam is director of graduate studies for the Master of Public Administration program and associate professor of public administration at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is the author of several books, including QUALITY Public Management, Usual Politics, and Strategies for Change.