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Methodological Research

reportJul 1, 2024

By the end of our free, five-lesson course, you will know why we have polls, what the different kinds of polls are, how polling works and what you should look for in a poll.

short readAug 28, 2024

Conceptual image of an oversized voting ballot box in a large crowd of people with shallow depth of field

reportApr 19, 2023

short readJun 26, 2024

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Methodological Research

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reportNov 18, 2015

Advances in Telephone Survey Sampling

Telephone surveys face numerous challenges, but some positive developments have emerged, principally with respect to sampling.
reportNov 12, 2015

The Unique Challenges of Surveying U.S. Latinos

Surveying Hispanics is complicated for many reasons – language barriers, sampling issues and cultural differences – that are the subject of a growing field of inquiry.
reportNov 10, 2015

Apps Permissions in the Google Play Store

Analysis of over 1 million apps in Google’s Android operating system in 2014 shows apps can seek 235 different kinds of permissions from smartphone users. The average app asks for five permissions.
short readsSep 22, 2015

Who’s left out in a Web-only survey and how it affects results

We surveyed non-Web panel members by mail and assessed how much, if at all, their non-participation would affect the outcome in a poll conducted exclusively online.
reportSep 22, 2015

Coverage Error in Internet Surveys

With 89% of U.S. adults online, survey research is rapidly moving to the Web. But 89% is not 100%, and surveys that include only those who use the internet run the risk of producing biased results.
short readsSep 22, 2015

The many ways to measure economic inequality

Just what is “economic inequality”? Depends on whom you ask.
short readsSep 16, 2015

The art and science of the scatterplot

This type of chart is growing more popular, but just half of those with a high school education or less correctly interpreted one in our science quiz.
reportSep 3, 2015

The Whys and Hows of Generations Research

At the center of the Pew Research Center’s mission is a commitment to measuring public attitudes on key issues and documenting differences in attitudes between demographic and political groups. An individual’s age is one of the most common predictors of differences in attitudes and behaviors. On issues ranging from foreign affairs to social policy, age […]
short readsAug 19, 2015

How do Americans use Twitter for news?

A look at how researchers analyzed news habits on Twitter using a small but representative sample of users drawn from a national survey of U.S. adults.
reportAug 19, 2015

Methodology: How do Americans use Twitter for news?

This analysis is exploratory research aimed at gaining a deeper understanding of news habits on Twitter by using a survey-based sample to identify a representative group of Twitter users and study their behavior. The study is based on Twitter activity of 176 U.S. adults who identified themselves as Twitter users and gave Pew Research Center permission […]

Signature Reports

reportNov 19, 2019

While survey research in the United States is a year-round undertaking, the public’s focus on polling is never more intense than during the run-up to a presidential election.

reportSep 7, 2023

Pew Research Center conducted a study to compare the accuracy of six online surveys of U.S. adults – three from probability-based panels and three from opt-in sources. On average, the absolute error on opt-in samples was about twice that of probability-based panels.

short readJun 26, 2024

Members of the American Trends Panel can now take our surveys online or over the phone with an interviewer.

reportApr 19, 2023

A new study found that 61% of national pollsters used different methods in 2022 than in 2016. And last year, 17% of pollsters used multiple methods to sample or interview people – up from 2% in 2016.