---
title: "Want to better understand how surveys work? We’ve got an email course for you"
description: "If you’ve wondered what opinion polls are for, how they are done or how to tell a good one from a bad one, sign up for our email mini-course."
date: "2021-10-05"
authors:
  - name: "Scott Keeter"
    job_title: "Senior Survey Advisor"
    link: "https://www.pewresearch.org/staff/scott-keeter/"
url: "https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/10/05/want-to-better-understand-how-surveys-work-weve-got-an-email-course-for-you/"
categories:
  - "Survey Basics"
  - "Survey Methods"
---

# Want to better understand how surveys work? We’ve got an email course for you

Sometimes it seems like public opinion polls are all around us, especially – but not only – in election years. If you’ve wondered what opinion polls are for, how they are done or how to tell a good one from a bad one, we’ve come up with some answers for you. Sign up for Pew Research Center’s [five-lesson email mini-course](https://mailchi.mp/pewresearch.org/polling-email-course) about polling and you’ll receive a short lesson from us every few days, over the course of a couple of weeks. As with all our work, it’s completely free.

We conduct lots of opinion polls here at the Center. We also do research on how to *improve *polling. We’ve tried to distill all this knowledge into short, easy-to-digest lessons that we hope will answer your questions about the subject. There’s even a quiz at the end so you can see what you’ve learned.

[![](https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/10/PM_21.09.22_pollingMiniCourse_featured.png?w=1024)](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/10/05/want-to-better-understand-how-surveys-work-weve-got-an-email-course-for-you/pm_21-09-22_pollingminicourse_featured-png-2/)

#### [Try our email course on polling](https://mailchi.mp/pewresearch.org/polling-email-course)

Want to know more about polling? Take your knowledge to the next level with a short email mini-course from Pew Research Center. [Sign up now!](https://mailchi.mp/pewresearch.org/polling-email-course)

Each email lesson will address a different topic about polling: What are polls, and why are they done? What kinds of subjects do polls cover? How are polls conducted, and how has that changed over time? Why did polls hit a rough patch in the 2016 and 2020 elections, and what’s being done to help the industry deal with its challenges? And – maybe most importantly – how can *you* become a savvier consumer of opinion polls? We want our lessons to be easy to understand, so we’ve written them in a straightforward, friendly way. But if you want to learn more, we’ve included links to more detailed articles and videos about many aspects of polling.

You can [sign up to take the polling mini-course here](https://mailchi.mp/pewresearch.org/polling-email-course). If you like it, you may want to check out our other e-mail courses, which address [immigration](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/10/16/want-to-understand-u-s-immigration-weve-got-an-email-course-for-you/), [Muslims](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/02/19/want-to-know-more-about-muslims-and-islam-weve-got-an-email-course-for-you/) and the [U.S. census](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/01/24/want-to-understand-the-2020-census-take-our-new-email-course/). We hope you get a lot out of our lessons, and please tell us what you think by emailing us at [minicourses@pewresearch.org](mailto:minicourses@pewresearch.org).