Rahvusvahelised küsitlusuuringud Tartu Ülikoolis 1990-2014. International Surveys at the University of Tartu in 1990-2014

Abstract

This article contributes to the history of science by giving an overview of the international comparative surveys connected to the University of Tartu on the basis of the original questionnaire-based or interview data originating from the period 1990–2014. We got information about 102 projects that were in accordance with the conditions described above. The most common international partners were Finns, Brits, Germans, Swedes, Poles and the Spanish. In terms of topics, most of the surveys were carried out in the field of social sciences in general (71 surveys), followed by health sciences (12 surveys), political science (12 surveys), education (7 surveys) and linguistics (1 survey). In terms of institutional affiliation, the greatest number of surveys were conducted in sociology and social policy (19 surveys), psychology (17 surveys), health sciences (16 surveys), education (15 surveys), social work (10 surveys), law (6 surveys), political science (6 surveys), media (5 surveys), religion (4 surveys), sports (2 surveys), by the Centre for Applied Social Sciences (2 surveys) and in linguistics (1 survey). 56% of the surveys were quantitative, 16% qualitative and 22% used mixed methods. The number of the quantitative surveys has been quite stabile over time, with four new projects starting every year on average, but the amount of qualitative and mixed method projects has risen after 2006. 43% of the surveys were designed to be representative of a group or certain population, 11 surveys were representative of the whole Estonian population. Many projects had only one or two publications, one third of the projects had six or more publications. The European Social Survey project in Estonia had the highest number of publications, publishing 70 additional items every year. A new paradigm cultivated by the European Social Survey was open access data. 12% of data in the surveyed 102 projects had open access data, in 54% of the cases the Estonian and international project team both had the data, in 20% of cases only the Estonian team had the data and in 4% of cases data was given away to the international team.