Academic Research Centers

bradburn-norman@norc.org

Survey methods

Questionnaire design

Happiness (Affect Balance Scale)

Humanities indicators

Ph.D, Social Psychology. Harvard University

M.A., Clinical Psychology. Harvard University

B.A., Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. Magdalen College, Oxford University

B.A., University of Chicago

Norman M. Bradburn, the Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus, serves on the faculties of the Irving B. Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies, the Department of Psychology, the Graduate School of Business and the College. He is a former provost of the University (1984–1989), chairman of the Department of Behavioral Sciences (1973–1979), and associate dean of the Division of the Social Sciences (1971–1973).

From 2000-2004 he was the Assistant Director for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences at the National Science Foundation. Bradburn is currently a senior fellow at the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) in the Cultural Policy Center.   Associated with NORC since 1961, he has been director of NORC and president of its Board of Trustees.  He is currently directing a project to develop Humanities Indicators for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a survey of recently completed construction projects in the cultural sector.

A social psychologist, Bradburn has been at the forefront in developing theory and practice in the field of sample survey research. He has focused on non-sampling errors and research on cognitive processes in responses to sample surveys. His  book, Thinking About Answers: The Application of Cognitive Process to Survey Methodology (co-authored with Seymour Sudman and Norbert Schwarz; Jossey-Bass, 1996), follows three other publications on the methodology of designing and constructing questionnaires: Polls and Surveys: Understanding What They Tell Us (with Seymour Sudman; Jossey-Bass, 1988); Asking Questions: A Practical Guide to Questionnaire Construction (with Seymour Sudman; Jossey-Bass, 1982; 2nd edition with Brian Wansink, 2004) and Improving Interviewing Method and Questionnaire Design (Jossey-Bass, 1979).

Bradburn was chair of the Committee on National Statistics of the National Research Council/National Academy of Sciences (NRC/NAS) from 1993 to 1998, and is past president of the American Association of Public Opinion Research (1991–1992). Bradburn chaired the NRC/NAS panel to advise the Census Bureau on alternative methods for conducting the census in the year 2000. The report, published as Counting People in the Information Age, was presented to the Census Bureau in October 1994. He was a member of the NRC/NAS panel to review the National Assessment of Educational Progress and the panel to assess the 2000 Census. He is a member of the NRC/NAS Committee to Assess Research Doctorate Programs, chair of its panel on data, and a member of the Board on Research Data and Information. 

Bradburn is a fellow of the American Statistical Association, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and an elected member of the International Institute of Statistics.  He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1994. In 1996 he was named the first Wildenmann Guest Professor at the Zentrum für Umfragen, Methoden und Analyse in Mannheim, Germany.  In 2004 he was given the Statistics Canada/American Statistical Association Waksberg Award in recognition of outstanding contributions to the theory and practice of survey methodology.