Design and Analysis of “How
Many X” Surveys to Study Social Networks
We consider issues in the design and analysis issues of "How many X's do you know?" surveys as a means of studyingsocial networks. We first discuss the analysis of such data using multilevel regression so that the properties of a network
can be studied in relation to the characteristics of the individuals in the network and subgroups of interest in the population. In designing new surveys of this type, we must consider network effects and response effects, including the
depth of social connections, the effects of imperfect recall, the choice of groups of known size to use for normalization,
and methods for learning about small and moderately-sized subpopulations.