Independent Researcher

(retired) previously Principal Lecturer in Sociology and Director, Survey Research Unit, Polytechnic of North London (UK)

About

[NB:  The academia site can be quite difficult to navigate: John's own website http://surveyresearch.weebly.com/ is much easier to use.  On it you will find everything from this site plus even more research reports, papers, questionnaires and related survey materials, in particular  extensive tutorials in the use of SPSS to process and analyse data from questionnaire surveys.]

John has more than 40 years' experience conducting empirical social research (especially survey research) and teaching social research methods. 

He studied, first  Classics, then Social Anthropology, at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge (BA Hons, 1963) and has a postgraduate Diploma in Education (Durham University 1964).  After a year teaching Liberal Studies and English at Openshaw Technical College, Manchester, he started his research career as a survey interviewer at Salford University in 1965, ending up running the entire project.  In 1968 he moved to Birmingham University as a (tenured) Lecturer to provide the social science component of a new MSc in Urban Science.  In 1970 he was appointed Senior Research Fellow (the first full time post, equivalent to Reader) at the SSRC Survey Unit. This  unit, directed by the late Dr Mark Abrams, and located "at, but not of", the LSE, was set up by the then Social Science Research Council (now the Economic and Social Research Council) to advise and assist academics and others doing survey based research on public funds. 

When SSRC controversially closed the unit in 1976 he moved to the then Polytechnic of North London (now incorporated into London Metropolitan University) as Principal Lecturer in Sociology to design and head up the first ever UK undergraduate degree in Social Research, and where in 1978 he set up the Survey Research Unit, which he and others saw as an uninterrupted continuation of the SSRC Survey Unit, with virtually the same terms of reference. 

Acknowledged by Dr Abrams as moving "easily and widely in the world of social science" (ie on first name terms with the great and the good, especially in the field of survey research) he was one of the few UK social scientists in the 1970s equally at home with colleagues drawn from backgrounds in sociology, statistics and computing.  He has extensive and varied publications and has conducted or supervised dozens of projects (mostly, but not exclusively surveys) ranging from small local to major national studies. 

He is particularly associated with the highly respected and much sought-after hands-on course (postgraduate part-time evening) Survey Analysis Workshop, which he designed and taught from 1976 until 1992 when he took early retirement. 

He is recognised for his pioneering work with Mark Abrams in the 1970s to develop survey-based subjective social indicators ("Quality of Life") and played a brokerage role in setting up the first British Crime Survey in 1982.  In 1986 he set up and chaired the judging panel for the Mark Abrams Prize awarded by the Social Research Association for the best piece of work linking survey research, social theory and/or social policy.

He was instrumental in the rapid spread of SPSS in the UK and set up and chaired the UK SPSS Users Group (UKSUG)  He served on various research methods and training committees and panels of the Social Science Research Council, British Sociological Association, Market Research Society and other professional bodies. 

Through his research, advisory and training work, first at the SSRC Survey Unit and later at the Polytechnic of North London he can claim dozens of satisfied clients and hundreds of grateful students, many of whom are now following successful careers in social research.  Of the students he taught and of the researchers he recruited to the SSRC Survey Unit or to the Survey Research Unit at PNL, many went on to occupy senior positions in applied social research in the UK: at least five became full Professors.  He specialised in advisory, design and collaborative work, getting value for money and in rescue jobs, and was an acknowledged expert in data management, documentation and analysis using SPSS.


(Photo: Christmas Day 2005, Regnéville beach)

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