In opinion polls and other types of social surveys, decline of response rates has long been aproblem, and has produced a lot of research papers. Many of those papers, however, are notnecessarily careful enough with regard to the distinctions among the types of social surveys;accordingly they tend to miss correct ways to cope with the challenges of each kind of study.
In this paper I will show how we can improve the quality of each type of social surveys, distinguishingsurvey types in terms of purpose and methodology. Section 1 describes the taskwe are facing. I will review the post-war history of the establishment of scientific methodsof public opinion polls in Sec.2, and of the methodologies of public opinion polls in countriesother than Japan in Sec.3. In Sec.4, I review the mathematical definitions of “probability”space which underlies the sampling theory of social survey. Building on that review, inSec.5, I will revisit the terminologies on survey research and attempt to correct them asnecessary. In Sec.6, I present some practical suggestions as to the classification of opinionpolls and sociological survey. Lastly, some comments for future research are provided inSection 7.
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