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Written for students and researchers who wish to understand the conceptual and practical aspects of sampling, this book is designed to be accessible without requiring advanced statistical training. It covers a wide range of topics, from the basics of sampling to special topics such as sampling rare populations, sampling organizational populations, and sampling visitors to a place. Using cases and examples to illustrate sampling principles and procedures, the book thoroughly covers the fundamentals of modern survey sampling, and addresses recent changes in the survey environment such as declining response rates, the rise of Internet surveys, the need to accommodate cell phones in telephone surveys, and emerging uses of social media and big data.

Joseph Waksberg's two-stage method of selecting equal probability samples of the general population using random-digit dialing is reviewed ("Sampling Methods for Random Digit Dialing," Journal of the American Statistical Association, 1978, 73, 40-46), & a modification for locating special geographically clustered groups is proposed. A screening design used in a recent Survey Research Laboratory study is outlined to illustrate location of a general population sample (N = 1,500 households), an "affluent" sample (N = 300 households with incomes over $30,000), & a black heads of household sample (N = 400). Problems in adjusting for no-response & refusal rates in determining eligibility are reviewed. 1 Table. Modified HA.

Given the weaker ties to community as noted by scholars such as Robert Putnam, survey researchers should not be surprised by a decline in survey participation over the past 10 years. This research analyzes the use of incentives coupled with introductory themes emphasizing cooperation and helpfulness—cooperative norms in American society—to understand their effects on survey response. This article analyzes two separate experiments (one phone and one mail) that provide evidence that norms of cooperation matter in the decision to participate in a survey, suggesting that this is particularly true at the refusal conversion stage. These results indicate that survey researchers may use such themes to their advantage, especially when conducting a nonresponse follow-up in a mail survey.