July 24, 2018
Alarming Prevalence of Errors in Survey Analyses
SCIENMAG reported on West, Sakshaug, and Aurelien’s meta-analysis of 250 papers, reports & presentations which found an alarming prevalence of analytic errors in secondary analyses of survey data, Alarming Error Common In Survey Analyses. Brady West says, “It was quite shocking. Only about half of these analyses claimed to account for weighting, the impact of sample designs on variance estimates was widely misunderstood and there was no sign of improvement in these problems over time.” The errors were just as common in peer-reviewed literature.
Related publication: West, Sakshaug, and Aurelien (2016). How Big of a Problem is Analytic Error in Secondary Analyses of Survey Data?, PLOS One.