Conferences

Comprehensive documentation of survey methods is critical in order to appropriately analyze cross-national survey data, assess data quality, and replicate study findings, yet it is an area that has often been neglected (Harkness, 1999; Heath, Fisher, & Smith, 2005; Mohler, Pennell, & Hubbard, 2008; Mohler & Uher, 2003). Born out of a Comparative Survey Design and Implementation (CSDI) Initiative, the Survey Metadata Documentation System (SMDS) is a standardized web-based documentation tool that was developed by the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research and Gesis-ZUMA, in an attempt to fill this void. This presentation begins with a review of the limitations in survey documentation that have been cited in the methodological literature and experiences with early documentation tools which led to the development of the SMDS. We then present an overview of the SMDS and describe in detail each of its 11 modules. The 11 modules gather metadata on each phase of survey activity as follows: General Project Information (Module 1), Ethics Review (Module 2), Sample Design (Module 3), Questionnaire Development (Module 4), Translation Process (Module 5), Computer Assisted Interview (CAI) Programming/Systems Development and Testing (Module 6), Pretesting (Module 7), Interviewer Recruitment and Training (Module 8), Data Collection (Module 9), Quality Control (Module 10), and Dataset Preparation/Final Report Information (Module 11). We report on initial efforts to implement the SMDS in large-scale, cross-national studies, such as the World Mental Health Survey Initiative. The potential to use this documentation tool to further methodological research in cross-national studies and to improve the design of later waves of repeated cross-sectional surveys and panel studies is explored as we consider the future of metadata documentation in cross-national surveys.