Insiders, Outsiders, and the Editing of Inconsistent Survey Data Export

@article{citeulike:4109173, abstract = {Data editing, a crucial task in the data production process, has received little scientific attention. Consequently, there is no consensus among social scientists about how data should be edited or by whom. While some argue that it should be left to data managers and data users, others claim that it is primarily a task for fieldworkers. The authors review these divergent approaches to editing and evaluate the underlying theoretical arguments. Results are reported from a methodological experiment in which different types of actors who are party to the data production and research process were asked to solve artificially generated inconsistencies in real survey data. Results are informative on two counts. First, the least accurate editors were the researchers with no field experience in the survey sites. Second, when provided with only partial information on which to make editing decisions, fieldworkers edited more accurately than both data managers and data users. 10.1177/0049124107313857}, author = {Sana, Mariano and Weinreb, Alexander A.}, citeulike-article-id = {4109173}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0049124107313857}, citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://smr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/36/4/515}, day = {1}, doi = {10.1177/0049124107313857}, journal = {Sociological Methods Research}, keywords = {bias, methods, sample}, month = {May}, number = {4}, pages = {515--541}, posted-at = {2009-02-27 05:37:10}, priority = {0}, title = {Insiders, Outsiders, and the Editing of Inconsistent Survey Data}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0049124107313857}, volume = {36}, year = {2008} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:4109173 L3 - citeulike-article-id:4109173 N2 - Data editing, a crucial task in the data production process, has received little scientific attention. Consequently, there is no consensus among social scientists about how data should be edited or by whom. While some argue that it should be left to data managers and data users, others claim that it is primarily a task for fieldworkers. The authors review these divergent approaches to editing and evaluate the underlying theoretical arguments. Results are reported from a methodological experiment in which different types of actors who are party to the data production and research process were asked to solve artificially generated inconsistencies in real survey data. Results are informative on two counts. First, the least accurate editors were the researchers with no field experience in the survey sites. Second, when provided with only partial information on which to make editing decisions, fieldworkers edited more accurately than both data managers and data users. 10.1177/0049124107313857 IS - 4 JF - Sociological Methods Research EP - 541 TI - Insiders, Outsiders, and the Editing of Inconsistent Survey Data VL - 36 SP - 515 KW - bias KW - methods KW - sample AU - Sana, Mariano AU - Weinreb, Alexander PY - 2008/05/01/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0049124107313857 ER -