Why survey estimates of the number of Americans online don’t always agree
How many U.S. adults use the internet? There are a lot of sources with answers to this question. Yet these different sources can be tricky to reconcile.
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How Pew Research Center counted U.S. unauthorized immigrants in 2019
Jeffrey S. Passel, senior demographer, on the research techniques used to derive the unauthorized immigrant population estimate in the U.S. and the challenges involved.
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How highly religious Americans view evolution depends on how they’re asked about it
Evolution remains a contentious issue. When asked about it, highly religious Americans’ responses can vary depending on how the question is asked.
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The Evolution of Pew Research Center’s Survey Questions About the Origins and Development of Life on Earth
Measuring public opinion on evolution has never been an easy task for survey researchers.
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‘Good jobs’ vs. ‘jobs’: Survey experiments can measure the effects of question wording – and more
The way polling questions are asked can influence people’s answers. Survey experiments are one way to measure the degree to which different questions elicit different answers.
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How Does Pew Research Center Measure the Religious Composition of the U.S.? Answers to Frequently Asked Questions
Question 1: Measuring religious identity How does Pew Research Center measure the religious identity of survey respondents and the religious composition of the U.S.? Answer: Generally, we rely on respondents’ self-identification. A key question we ask in many surveys is: “What is your present religion, if any? Are you Protestant, Roman Catholic, Mormon, Orthodox such […]
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Q&A: How Pew Research Center identified bots on Twitter
For a recent study on automated accounts and Twitter, we had to answer a fundamental question: Which accounts are bots and which accounts aren’t? Read a Q&A with Stefan Wojcik, a computational social scientist at the Center and one of the report’s authors, on how he and his colleagues navigated this question.
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How Pew Research Center surveyed 1,000 U.S. Muslims
In a short video, Pew Research Center researchers explain how they produced the Center’s wide-ranging new survey of 1,001 American Muslims.
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Q&A: Using Google search data to study public interest in the Flint water crisis
Read an interview with Director of Journalism Research Amy Mitchell, who helped author the study.
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The challenges of translating the U.S. census questionnaire into Arabic
In 2020, census questionnaires may for the first time be offered in Arabic, now the fastest-growing language in the U.S. But the Census Bureau faces a challenge not only in translating the language but also in adjusting the appearance of the questionnaire for those accustomed to reading and writing Arabic script.
