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Professor Patrick Sturgis

Professor Patrick Sturgis

Professor of Quantitative Social Science

Department of Methodology

Email
p.sturgis@lse.ac.uk
Room No
CON.2.07
Office Hours
Please refer to StudentHub for details
Connect with me

Twitter

Languages
English, French
Key Expertise
Research design, Survey methodology, Statistical methods.

About me

"My substantive research harnesses the power of representative sampling and careful questionnaire design to address important societal questions relating to how populations and groups think, feel, and behave."
- Professor Patrick Sturgis shares what is at the core of his research as part of our 30th Anniversary celebrations. Read the full close-up with Methodology faculty.

 

Patrick Sturgis is Professor of Quantitative Social Science at the Department of Methodology, LSE.

Patrick’s research focuses on survey and statistical methods and their application to understanding social and political behaviour. He was Director of the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM) 2009 to 2019 and President of the European Survey Research Association (ESRA) from 2011 to 2015. He chaired the Methodological Advisory Committee of the UK Household Longitudinal Survey (2012-2016), and is Chair of the Methodological Advisory Committee of the European Social Survey. He chaired the British Polling Council/Market Research Society Inquiry into the failure of the 2015 UK election polls and served as Specialist Advisor to the House of Lords Select Committee on Political Polling and Digital Media. He is an editorial board member of Public Opinion Quarterly, Survey Research Methods, and International Journal of Social Research Methods.

Patrick received his PhD in social psychology at the LSE. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, and an Honorary Life Fellow of the Market Research Society

Patrick's CV is available to view.

Research Interests

His substantive research interests include public opinion dynamics, political behaviour, how neighbourhood contexts influence individual attitudes and group norms, intergenerational social mobility and how this relates to geographical location, and public attitudes to science and technology. Methodologically, his research focuses on all aspects of survey methodology and political polling but with a particular emphasis on the psychology of measurement and how measurement error is related to non-observational error and on cross-national and longitudinal surveys.

Expertise Details

Research design; Survey methodology; Questionnaire design; Nonresponse bias; Statistical methods; Structural equation models; Longitudinal data analysis; Opinion polling.

Books
  • Engel, Uwe, Jann, Benn, Lynn, Peter, Scherpenzeel, Annette and Sturgis, Patrick (eds.) Improving Survey Methods: Lessons from Recent Research. Abingdon, GB, Routledge.
  • Bulmer, Martin, Sturgis, Patrick J. and Allum, Nick (2009) The secondary analysis of survey data, Sage, London, UK, Sage, 1664pp.

Chapters in Books
  • Lessof, C. and Sturgis P. (2018) New kinds of survey measurement, in David L. Vannette and Jon A. Krosnick (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Survey Research, 165-173, Springer.
  • Sturgis, P. Brunton-Smith, I and Jackson, J. (2019) Regression-based response probing for assessing the validity of survey questions, in Paul Beatty, Gordon Willis and Jose-Luis Padilla (eds) Question Design Testing and Evaluation, Wiley (in press).
  • Sturgis, P. and Luff, R. (2015) Audio-recording of open-ended survey questions: a solution to the problem of interviewer transcription? In Uwe Engel (ed) Survey Measurements: Techniques, Data Quality and Sources of Error 42-57.
  • Sturgis, P. (2014) Why one in ten Britons support the monetary control bill (even though it doesn’t exist): public opinion and nonattitudes. In Phillip Cowley and Robert Ford (eds) Sex Lies and the Ballot Box: 50 things you need to know about British elections, 9-12, Biteback Publishing
  • Sturgis, Patrick, Patulny, Roger, Allum, Nick and Buscha, Franz (2015) Social connectedness and generalized trust: a longitudinal perspective. In Yaojun Li (ed) The Handbook of Social Capital, Edward Elgar.
  • Turner, Malgorzata, Sturgis, Patrick, Martin, David and Skinner, Chris (2014) Can interviewer personality, attitudes and experience explain the design effect in face-to-face surveys? In, Engel, Uwe, Jann, Benn, Lynn, Peter, Scherpenzeel, Annette and Sturgis, Patrick (eds.) Improving Survey Methods: Lessons from Recent Research. Abingdon, GB, Routledge.
  • Roberts, C., Allum, N. & Sturgis, P. (2014). Non-response and measurement error in online panels based on probability samples – are efforts to recruit reluctant panelists worth it? In Callegaro, M. Baker, R. Bethlehem, J. Göritz, A., Krosnick, J & Lavrakas, P. Online panel research: a data quality perspective. Wiley
  • Sturgis, Patrick (2012) Surveys and sampling. In, Breakwell, Glynis M., Smith, Jonathan A. and Wright, Daniel B. (eds.) Research Methods in Psychology. 4th Edition. London, GB, SAGE, 93-112.
  • Allum N, Sturgis, P and Read, S. (2011) Social and Political Trust across Time and Culture In Davidov, E, Billiet, J and Schmidt, P (eds) Methods for Cross-Cultural Analysis: Basic Strategies and Applications. Taylor & Francis.  
  • Allum, N., Patulny R. & Sturgis, P. (2010) Re-evaluating the links between social trust, institutional trust and civic association in Europe In Stilwell et al (eds) Understanding Population Trends and Processes. Springer Verlag.  
  • Smith, P.W.F., Berrington, A. and Sturgis, P. (2009) A comparison of graphical models and structural equation models for the analysis of longitudinal survey data In P. Lynn (ed.), Methodology of Longitudinal Surveys (pp. 381-392)  
  • Sturgis, P. Allum, N. and Brunton-Smith, I. (2009) The Psychology of Panel Conditioning In P. Lynn (ed) Methodology of Longitudinal Surveys (pp. 113-126). Wiley.  
  • Sturgis, P. (2008) Designing Samples. In Nigel Gilbert (ed.), Researching Social Life 3rd Edition (pp. 165-182). Sage.  
  • Sturgis, P. (2006) Surveys and Sampling In Research Methods in Psychology, edited by G. Breakwell, S.Hammond and C. Fife-Schaw. London: Sage.  
  • P. Sturgis, H. Cooper, C. Fife-Schaw and R. Shepherd (2004) Genomic Science: Emerging Public Opinion In Park et al (eds) British Social Attitudes 21st Report. London: Sage.
  • Lynn P, Sturgis P, Clarke P and Martin J (2001) The Effects of Extended Interviewer Effort on Nonresponse Bias. Survey Nonresponse (Robert M. Groves, John L. Eltinge, and Roderick J.A. Little (eds.))

Journal Articles
  • Anders, J., Macmillan, L., Sturgis, P., Wyness, G. (2022) Inequalities in late adolescents’ educational experiences and wellbeing during the Covid-19 pandemic, Oxford Review of Education, DOI: 10.1080/03054985.2022.2124964

  • Buscha, F., Gorman, E., Sturgis, P. (2023) Selective schooling and social mobility in England, Labour Economics, 81, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2023.102336

  • Kibuchi, E. Sturgis, P. Maslovskaya, O. and Durrant, G. (2019) Do interviewers moderate the effect of monetary incentives on response rates in household interview surveys? Journal of Survey Statistics and Methodology smy026, https://doi.org/10.1093/jssam/smy026
  • Brunton-Smith, I. Sturgis, P. and Leckie, G. (2018) How collective is collective efficacy? The importance of consensus in judgments about community cohesion and willingness to intervene, Criminology, 56(3), 608-637.
  • Sturgis, P. Kuha, J. Jennings, W. Baker, N. Callegaro, M. Fisher, S. Green, J. Lauderdale, B. and Smith, P. (2017) An assessment of the causes of the errors in the 2015 UK General Election Polls. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A (Statistics in Society) 181(3), 757-781.
  • Brunton-Smith, I. Sturgis, P. and Leckie, G. (2017) Detecting and understanding interviewer effects on survey data using a cross-classified mixed-effects location scale model, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A (Statistics in Society), 180(2), 551-568.
  • Buscha, Franz and Sturgis, Patrick (2017) Declining social mobility? Evidence from five linked censuses in England and Wales 1971-2011, British Journal of Sociology, 69(1), 154-182.
  • Sturgis, Patrick, Williams, Joel, Brunton-Smith, Ian and Moore, Jamie (2016) Fieldwork effort, response rate, and the distribution of survey outcomes: a multi-level meta-analysis, Public Opinion Quarterly, 81(2), 523-542.
  • Kuha, J. and Sturgis, P. (2016) Comment on ‘What to do instead of significance testing? Calculating the ‘number of counterfactual cases needed to disturb a finding’. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 19(4), 491-495.
  • Turner, Gosia, Sturgis, Patrick and Martin, David (2015) Can Response Latencies be used to Detect Survey Satisficing on Cognitively Demanding Questions? Journal of Survey Statistics and Methodology, 3(1), 89-108.
  • Buscha, Franz and Sturgis, Patrick (2015) Increasing inter-generational social mobility: is educational expansion the answer? British Journal of Sociology 66 (3), 512-533.
  • Sturgis, Patrick (2014) The limits of public engagement for the governance of emerging technologies.Public Understand ing of Science 23 (1), 38-42.
  • Allum, Nick, Sibley, Elissa, Sturgis, Patrick and Stoneman, Paul (2014) Religious beliefs, knowledge about science and attitudes towards medical genetics, Public Understanding of Science, 23: 833-849.
  • Sturgis, P. Roberts C. and Smith, P. (2014) Middle Alternatives Revisited: how the neither/nor response serves as a face-saving way of saying ‘I don’t know’, Sociological Methods and Research, 43 (1), 15-38.
  • Sturgis, Patrick, Brunton-Smith, Ian, Kuha, Jouni and Jackson, Jonathan (2014) Ethnic diversity, segregation, and the social cohesion of neighbourhoods in London. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 37, (8),1286-1309. 
  • Stoneman, Paul, Sturgis, Patrick and Allum, Nick (2013) Understanding support for complementary and alternative medicine in general populations: use and perceived efficacy. Health, 17, (5), 512-529.
  • Stoneman P, Sturgis P, Allum N, Sibley E (2013) Incommensurable Worldviews? Is Public Use of Complementary and Alternative Medicines Incompatible with Support for Science and Conventional Medicine? PLoS ONE 8(1): e53174.doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0053174
  • Smith, Graham, John, Peter and Sturgis, Patrick (2013) Taking political engagement online: an experimental analysis of asynchronous discussion forums. Political Studies, 61(4) 709-730.
  • Sindall, Katy, Sturgis, Patrick and Jennings, Will (2013) Public confidence in the police: a time-series analysis. British Journal of Criminology, 52, (4), 744-764.
  • Brunton-Smith, I, Sturgis, P and Willams, J (2012) Is success in obtaining contact and cooperation correlated with the magnitude of interviewer variance? Public Opinion Quarterly, 76 (2): 265-286.
  • Blanden, Jo, Buscha, Franz, Sturgis, Patrick J. and Urwin, Peter (2012) Measuring the earnings returns to accredited adult learning in the UK. Economics of Education Review, 31(4), 501-514.
  • Stoneman, Paul, Sturgis, Patrick and Allum, Nick (2012) Exploring public discourses about emerging technologies through statistical clustering of open-ended survey questions. Public Understanding of Science, 22(7), 850-868.
  • Brunton-Smith, I. and  Sturgis, P. (2011) Do Neighbourhoods Generate Fear of Crime? An Empirical Test Using the British Crime Survey, Criminology, 49(2), 331-369.
  • Sturgis, P., Brunton-Smith, I., Read S., Allum, N. (2011) Does ethnic diversity erode trust?: Putnam’s ‘hunkering-down’ thesis reconsidered. British Journal of Political Science, 41(1), 57-82.
  • Sturgis, P. and Smith, P. (2010) Assessing the Validity of Generalized Trust Questions: What kind of trust are we measuring? International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 22(1), 74-92.  
  • Sturgis, P. and Smith, P. (2010) Fictitious Issues Revisited: political knowledge, interest, and the generation of nonattitudes. Political Studies, 58(1), 66-84.
  • Sturgis, P., Read S., Allum, N. (2010) Does Intelligence Foster Interpersonal Trust?: An Empirical Test Using the UK Birth Cohort Studies. Intelligence, 38(1), 45-54.
  • Sturgis, P., Read S., Hatemi, P., Zhu, G., Trull, T., Wright, M., Martin, N. (2010) A genetic basis for social trust? Political Behavior, 32(2), 205-230.
  • Sturgis, Patrick J, Brunton-Smith, Ian and Fife-Schaw, Chris (2010) Public attitudes to genomic science: an experiment in information provision. Public Understanding of Science, 19(2), 166-180.
  • Sturgis, P., Choo, M. & Smith, P. (2009) Response Order, Party Choice, and Evaluations of the National Economy: A Survey Experiment. Survey Research Methods, 3(1), 7-12.
  • Allum, N., Sturgis, P., Tabourazi, D., Brunton-Smith, I. (2008) Science knowledge and attitudes across cultures: a meta-analysis . Public Understanding of Science, 17(1), 35-54.  
  • Berrington, A., Hu, Y., Smith, P.W. and Sturgis, P. (2008) Berrington, A., Hu, Y., Smith, P.W. and Sturgis, P. A Graphical Chain Model for Reciprocal Relationships Between Women’s Gender Role Attitudes and Labour Force Participation. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A, 171(1), 89-108.  
  • Di Pietro, G., Jack, G., Sturgis, P. and Urwin, P. (2008) Measuring the Returns to Networking and the Accumulation of Social Capital: Any Evidence of Bonding, Bridging or Linking? The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 67(5), 941-968.  
  • Sturgis, P. Allum, N. & Smith, P. (2008) The Measurement of Political Knowledge in Surveys. Public Opinion Quarterly, 72(1), 90-102.  
  • Sturgis, P. and Sullivan, L. (2008) Exploring social mobility with latent trajectory groups. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A., 171 (1), 65-88.  
  • Adams, K., Hean, S., Sturgis, P. & Mcleod Clark, J. (2006) Investigating the factors influencing professional identity of first-year health and social care students . Learning in Health and Social Care, 5, 2, 55-68.  
  • Sturgis, P., Cooper, H. and Fife-Schaw, C. (2005) Attitudes to Biotechnology: Estimating the Opinions of a Better Informed Public. New Genetics and Society, 24(1), 34-58.  
  • Sturgis, P., Roberts, C. and Allum, N. (2005) A Different Take on the Deliberative Poll: Information, Deliberation and Attitude Constraint. Public Opinion Quarterly, 69(1), 30-65.
  • Sturgis, P and Allum, N (2004) Science in Society: Re-evaluating the Deficit Model of Public Understanding. Public Understanding of Science, 13(1), 55-75.  
  • Sturgis, P. (2004) Analysing Complex Survey Data: Clustering, Stratification and Weights. Social Research Update, 43    
  • Sturgis, P. (2004) The Effect of Coding Error on Time Use Surveys Estimates. Journal of Official Statistics, 20(3), 467-480.
  • Sturgis, P. (2003) Knowledge and Collective Preferences: A Comparison of Two Approaches to Estimating the Opinions of a Better Informed Public. Sociological Methods and Research, 31(4), 453-485.
  • Sturgis, P. (2002) Attitudes and Measurement Error Revisited: Reply to Johnson and Pattie. British Journal of Political Science, 32, 691-698.  
  • Sturgis, P. & Allum, N. (2001) Gender Differences in Scientific Knowledge and Attitudes toward Science: Reply to Hayes and Tariq. Public Understanding of Science, 10, 427-430.
  • Purdon S, Campanelli P and Sturgis P (1999) Interviewer's Calling Strategies on Face-to-Face Interview Surveys. Journal of Official Statistics, 15(2), 199-216.  
  • Sturgis P and Campanelli P (1998) The Scope for Reducing Refusals in Household Surveys: An Investigation based on Transcripts of Tape-recorded Doorstep Interactions. Journal of the Market Research Society, 40(2), 121-139.

Reports
  • Sturgis, P. and Luff, R. (2016) Social Impact Assessment Framework: Guide to Performance in Use, Future Cities Catapult, London.
  • Sturgis, P. Baker, N. Callegaro, M. Fisher, S. Green, J. Jennings, W. Kuha, J. Lauderdale, B. and Smith, P.  (2016) Report of the Inquiry into the 2015 British general election opinion polls, London: Market Research Society and British Polling Council.
  • Luff, R., Wiles, R. and Sturgis, P. (2015) Consultation on Methodological Research Needs in UK Social Science. Report. National Centre for Research Methods.
  • Smith, P., Nicolaas, G. and Sturgis, P. (2014) Options for Carrying Out Large-Scale Surveys in Wales. Report for the Welsh Government.
  • Sturgis, P. and Brunton-Smith, I. (2014) Examining potential bias in the sampling methodology for the Green Deal Assessment Survey, Report for the Department of Energy and Climate Change.
  • Moley, S., Wiles, R. and Sturgis, P. (2013) Advanced Research Methods Training in the UK: Current Provision and Future Strategies.  Report. National Centre for Research Methods.
  • Sturgis, Patrick and Brunton-Smith, Ian (2012) An assessment of the potential utility of interviewer observation variables for reducing non-response error in the National Survey for Wales. Cardiff, GB, Welsh Assembly Government, 48pp.
  • Sturgis, Patrick (2010) An investigation into potential bias in the Young Person’s Monitor Data. London,GB, Wellcome Trust.
  • Blanden, Jo, Buscha, Franz, Sturgis, Patrick and Urwin, Peter (2009) The effect of lifelong learning on intra-generational social mobility: evidence from longitudinal data in the United Kingdom. London, GB, Department for Innovation Universities and Skills.
  • Crow, G, and Sturgis, P. (2009) Overview and Evaluation of ESRC Funded Research in Sociology 2006-9. ESRC, Swindon.
  • Berrington, Ann, Smith, Peter W.F. and Sturgis, Patrick (2006) An overview of methods for the analysis of panel data. Southampton, UK, National Centre for Research Methods, School of Social Sciences,Universit y of Southampton, 57pp. (NCRM Methods Review Papers, (NCRM/007).
  • Sturgis, Patrick and Allum, Nick (2006) A literature review of research conducted on public interest, knowledge and attitudes to biomedical science: a report published by the Wellcome Trust. London, GB, The Wellcome Trust, 185pp.
  • Sturgis, P. Smith, P. & Hughes, G. (2006) A Study of Suitable Methods for Raising Response Rates in School Surveys. London: the Department for Education and Skills.
  • Holford, John, Patulny, Roger, Sturgis, Patrick (2006). Composite Indicators on Education and Training for Active Citizenship. Report prepared for the Joint Research Centre, European Commission.
  • Sturgis, Patrick, Thomas, Roger, Purdon, Susan, Bridgwood, Anne and Dodd, Tricia (2001) Comparative review and assessment of key health state measures of the general population. London, GB, Department of Health, 126pp.
  • Campanelli, P., Sturgis, P. and Purdon, S. The Survey Methods Centre at SCPR (1997) Can you hear me knocking? An investigation into the impact of interviewers on survey response rates. London, GB, National Centre for Social Research., 212pp.

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