Public Opinion Polling Basics
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.
Survey Methods
Who Are You? The Art and Science of Measuring Identity
As a shop that studies human behavior through surveys and other social scientific techniques, we have a good line of sight into the contradictory nature of human preferences. Here’s a look at how we categorize our survey participants in ways that enhance our understanding of how people think and behave.
How Pew Research Center Uses Its National Public Opinion Reference Survey (NPORS)
In 2020, Pew Research Center launched a new project called the National Public Opinion Reference Survey (NPORS). NPORS is an annual, cross-sectional survey of U.S. adults. Respondents can answer either by paper or online, and they are selected using address-based sampling from the United States Postal Service’s computerized delivery sequence file.
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Key things to know about U.S. election polling in 2024
Polls are more useful to the public if people have realistic expectations about what surveys can do well – and what they cannot.
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National Public Opinion Reference Survey (NPORS)
NPORS is an annual survey of U.S. adults conducted by the Pew Research Center used to to produce benchmark estimates for several topics.
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Quiz: Test your polling knowledge
Test your knowledge of public opinion polling by taking our 10-question quiz.
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Q&A: What is the American Trends Panel, and how has it changed?
Members of the American Trends Panel can now take our surveys online or over the phone with an interviewer.
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How do people in the U.S. take Pew Research Center surveys, anyway?
Here, we address some of the most common questions we receive about the nuts and bolts of taking a U.S.-focused Pew Research Center poll.
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Online opt-in polls can produce misleading results, especially for young people and Hispanic adults
We examine how an opt-in poll may have unintentionally misled the public about the sensitive issue of Holocaust denial among young Americans.
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Q&A: How – and why – we’re changing the way we study tech adoption
With our shift to using NPORS for studying topics like the digital divide, Americans can now respond by mail or online. This change in approach sets us up to continue studying tech adoption long into the future.
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Comparing Two Types of Online Survey Samples
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.
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Republican Gains in 2022 Midterms Driven Mostly by Turnout Advantage
68% of U.S. adults who voted in the 2020 presidential election turned out to vote in the 2022 midterms. Former President Donald Trump’s voters turned out at a higher rate in 2022 (71%) than did President Joe Biden’s voters (67%).
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When surveying small populations, some approaches are more inclusive than others
Modern survey tools offer several ways to survey small populations, and in this explainer, we discuss the strengths and weaknesses of prominent approaches.
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