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.
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The challenges of polling Asian Americans
Why aren’t Asian Americans shown as a separate group when differences among whites, blacks and Hispanics are discussed in survey reports? It’s a good question, so we put together a summary of some of the methodological and other issues on accurately polling U.S. Asians.
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How Pew Research Center studied the Washington press corps
Jesse Holcomb, associate director of research at the Center, explains how the new report was put together.
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The many ways to measure economic inequality
Just what is “economic inequality”? Depends on whom you ask.
