Given the wide range of people we speak to for our polls – and the issues we ask them about – it’s important to be as clear as possible about exactly who says what. In research circles, this practice is sometimes called “defining the universe."
Donald Trump's victory in 2016 and the U.K. "Brexit" decision rattled public confidence in polls. Our new video explains why well-designed polls can be trusted.
The American Trends Panel (ATP), created by the Pew Research Center, is a nationally representative panel of randomly selected U.S. adults recruited from landline and cell phone random digit dial surveys. Panelists participate via monthly self-administered Web surveys. Panelists who do not have internet access are provided with a tablet and wireless internet connection. The […]
In the second video from our Methods 101 series, we’re tackling why question wording is so important in public opinion surveys.
Read a Q&A with Michael Dimock, president of Pew Research Center, on recent developments in public opinion polling and what lies ahead.
Telephone polls still provide accurate data on a wide range of social, demographic and political variables, but some weaknesses persist.
The first video in our "Methods 101" series is about random sampling, a concept that undergirds all probability-based survey research. Here's how it works.
Courtney Kennedy of Pew Research Center, who chaired survey researchers organization AAPOR's task force on political polling in the 2016 U.S. elections, discuss the group's findings and recommendations.
An experiment comparing responses to 27 questions fielded on both a telephone and a web survey found no significant mode differences in overall opinion about Trump or many of his signature policy positions.
Opinion polls in the U.S. can address the same topic yet reach very different results. There are several reasons this can happen, but we tackle one of the most basic: Did the poll include or exclude the 45% who didn’t vote in November?
