International Survey Methods

Associate Director for International Research Methods Patrick Moynihan explored the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on survey research globally as part of an online conference hosted by the Centre for Social Research and Methods at Australian National University.

Our response to the pandemic has included the difficult decision to suspend much of our international survey work until further notice.

Our Global Indicators Database serves as a repository of data on global views about international and domestic politics, economics and other topics.

International polling provides information about how people in different countries are thinking about issues like immigration, technology, religion, you name it. But polling in different parts of the world can be very challenging, because what works in one country may not work in a different country.

The Center conducts polls in many countries other than the U.S. – but the methodology behind our international surveys can vary.

With global survey research, it's important to understand what people are thinking about the subject we're studying. Focus groups help address this.

Detailed information on Pew Research Center international survey meethodology, such as mode of interview, sampling design, margin of error, and design effect, for each country we survey, organized by survey, country and year.

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 […]

Pew Research Center hosted a survey methodology workshop on the opportunities and challenges of conducting public opinion research in sub-Saharan Africa to identify and discuss best practices and future directions for the field.

The claim by Kuriakose and Robbins (2015) that there is widespread falsification in international surveys is clearly concerning. However, an extensive investigation conducted by Pew Research Center finds the claim is not well supported.