Nora Cate Schaeffer
Faculty Director, University of Wisconsin Survey Center
4422 Sewell Social Sciences
Alternate Office: 1800 University Avenue, Madison WI 53726
(608) 262-3868
Fax: (608) 262-8400
schaeffer@ssc.wisc.edu
Alternate Webpage
Office Hours: W 11- 12 and by appt. (Fall'09)
Curriculum Vitae
Selected Publications:
Schaeffer, Nora Cate and Jennifer L. Dykema. 2004. "A Multiple-Method Approach to Improving the Clarity of Closely Related Concepts: Distinguishing Legal and Physical Custody of Children." Pp. 475-502 in Methods for Testing and Evaluating Survey Questionnaires, edited by Stanley Presser, Jennifer M. Rothgeb, Mick P. Couper, Judith T. Lessler, Elizabeth Martin, Jean Martin, and Eleanor Singer. New York: Wiley.
Schaeffer, Nora Cate and Stanley Presser. 2003. "The Science of Asking Questions." Annual Review of Sociology, 29: 65-88. Link to this publication
Schaeffer, Nora Cate and Douglas W. Maynard. 2002. "Occasions for Intervention: Interactional Resources for Comprehension in Standardized Survey Interviews." In Standardization and Tacit Knowledge: Interaction and Practice in the Survey Interview, edited by Douglas W. Maynard, Hanneke Houtkoop-Steenstra, Nora Cate Schaeffer, and Johannes van der Zouwen. New York: Wiley.
Dykema, Jennifer and Nora Cate Schaeffer. 2000. "Events, Instruments, and Reporting Errors." American Sociological Review 65(4):619-29.
Schaeffer, Nora Cate. 2000. “Asking Questions about Sensitive Topics: A Selective Overview.” Pp. 105-122 in Arthur A. Stone, Jaylan S. Turkkan, Christine A. Bachrach, Jared B. Jobe, Howard S. Kurtzman, and Virginia S. Cain, eds. The Science of Self-Report: Implications for Research and Practice. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Areas of Interest:
Demography
Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis
Methods and Statistics
Social Psychology and Microsociology
Affiliations:
Center for Demography and Ecology
Center for Demography of Health and Aging
Institute for Research on Poverty
Population Health Sciences
Sociology
University of Wisconsin Survey Center
Research Interest Statement:
Schaeffer studies the quality of survey measurement, focusing mostly on data and variables of interest to population researchers. She has conducted research on characteristics of nonrespondents, nonresponse bias, the accuracy of reports about events and behaviors, and the characteristics of response scales. Pioneering studies by Schaeffer and collaborators errors in self-reports about child support by comparing survey answers to court documents. Schaeffer also studies interaction between respondents and interviewers and the implications of the interaction for measurement error. Current projects examine interactional correlates of measurement error and cognitive functioning and how interviewers formulate requests for survey participation.