Recent polling clearly shows that Americans are much more accepting of same-sex marriage than they were a decade ago. All of the major national polls now find more supporters than opponents of same-sex marriage. But there is no consensus in the polling as to just how many Americans now actually […] Read more »
Beyond Smartphones: Envisioning the Next Generation of Data Collection Devices
Mobile data collection has garnered significant attention among survey researchers in the last few years. … Incorporating the devices requires research to determine when and how they can be used with acceptable results (i.e., produce quality data). At the same time we are conducting this research, new devices are being […] Read more »
Poll questions shift public views on global warming
… After every hurricane, heat wave or hullabaloo over climate science, the polling results come, watched breathlessly for some shift in U.S. public opinion about global warming. All the hand-wringing may not have amounted to anything, suggests one long-term look at all those polls. The majority of the public pretty […] Read more »
Gun Counts Can Be Hit-or-Miss
Lawmakers in statehouses and the U.S. Capitol who are debating proposed new firearm laws are lacking some key data: How many people in the U.S. own guns, and how many households contain guns? Some surveys suggest only 50 million Americans own guns. Others, depending on how they are interpreted, point […] Read more »
Social media for social science: The imperfect window
Much of the world, it seems, has been atwitter about social media in recent years. Researchers are no exception. Rather than needing to solicit insight from people with telephone calls during dinner or mailing surveys that largely end up in the trash, social scientists now have readily available tools to […] Read more »
GOP looks for answers on polling
The campaign arm of the congressional GOP is moving to reboot its polling operation after a messy 2012 cycle, the first concrete remedy taken by the Republican side since candidates and outside groups were left stunned on Election Day by results that their internal data never came close to predicting. […] Read more »