SSG History

SSG Projects

Survey Sciences Group, LLC (SSG) was founded in 2004 by Scott Crawford, and moved to its corporate headquarters in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 2005. In its first year, SSG served researchers at University of Michigan’s Substance Abuse Research Center, Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Public Health, and Survey Research Center. It also collaborated with the University of Maryland at College Park; the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and Calverton, Maryland); the Prevention Research Center in Berkeley, California; and many other academic and research facilities.

Shortly after his fledgling company established itself as a valuable resource for social scientists, Crawford added a new division, the Center for Student Studies (CSS) in 2004. CSS blends SSG’s personalized, evidence-based approach with a nuanced and specialized understanding of how to access the population of students. Two months after its inception, CSS launched the California Safer Schools Study, its first, multi-campus, web-based survey. Since then, we have further refined the art of coordinating research efforts of this scale, and have conducted other multi-focal collegiate studies such as the Healthy Minds Study and the Multi-institutional Study of Leadership.

In 2006, SSG expanded its client base from academia to the government sector, accepting its first federal assignment as a prime contractor. In 2007, we partnered with the National Science Foundation’s Division of Science Resource Statistics to assess the feasibility of surveying postdoctoral researchers in the United States. The NSF Postdoc Data project is our most ambitious collaboration in both its scope and complexity.

Advancing Survey Sciences

The SSG team has contributed to the advancement of survey methodology, presenting original research at meetings of the American Association of Public Opinion Research, the International Conference on Establishment Surveys and other professional forums . Our work has been featured in numerous academic journals. We support rising survey researchers by providing financial support and opportunities for professional development. In 2005, we established the Survey Sciences Group Scholar position through a gift to the University of Michigan’s program in Survey Methodology.

SSG has permanently changed the course of survey methodology by introducing the Internet as a legitimate survey medium. Scott Crawford has conducted research demonstrating the viability of web surveys, and is a staunch advocate for their use in methodologically sound research. He has played a major role in establishing and proliferating evidence-based guidelines for using this medium, and sharing his expertise through presentations and courses—including an annual course on web survey implementation at the University of Michigan’s Summer Institute in Survey Research Techniques.

In addition to supporting scholarship, we have pioneered the use of technology that increases the capabilities of the Internet as a survey medium. Our SSGeo Mapping tool, released in 2006, is the first fully interactive, survey-embedded mapping utility for self-administered web studies. SSGeo Mapping eliminates the need for an interviewer-assisted survey by transforming standard web browser software into a tool for collecting location intelligence directly from respondents. SSG has since released an updated version of SSGeo Mapping, as well as numerous other tools to increase both the quality and utility of web surveys.

Looking to the Future

Each year at SSG has marked an exponential increase in new clients, projects, and services. To accommodate this growth, SSG has enhanced our internal capabilities, adding new staff members and doubling our office space. Our expansion reflects the effectiveness and quality of our services. As we continue to refine and build upon our offerings, we anticipate maintaining this rapid growth while continuing to provide the same exceptional service that has come to characterize our work.

History