Edited 11/09/04.
The GSS (General Social Survey) is an interview survey of U.S. households chosen by using a proportional sampling technique. The survey is conducted by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC). The first survey took place in 1972 and has been given on an almost yearly basis since then. "The items appearing on the surveys are one of three types: Permanent questions that occur on each survey, rotating questions that appear on two out of every three surveys (1973, 1974, and 1976, or 1973, 1975, and 1976), and a few occasional questions such as split ballot experiments that occur in a single survey."
"The GSS is 'general' in that it covers a broad range of variables from 'Abortion, attitudes toward,' to 'Zodiac, sign of.' The eclecticism of the GSS is a mirror of the eclectic interests of contemporary social science."
"..the GSS tries to follow the highest survey standards in design, sampling, interviewing, processing, and documentation. Items are designed by leading specialists in their field and then pretested, full-probability sampling is used, a high response rate is obtained, and many data quality checks from validation to verification are employed."
| For more about the GSS check the NORC discription (GSS Study Description) |
