Ipsos has been getting a lot of questions lately about the political makeup of polls. This is normal towards the end of an election cycle – lots of people scrutinize the polls a lot more closely! We welcome the discussions, and it offers us an opportunity to help people better […] Read more »
The challenge of polling voter enthusiasm
Two paradoxical findings from a new Washington Post-ABC News poll offer unique insight into how Obama’s chances at re-election hinge closely on his ability to inspire supporters to get out and vote. [cont.] Scott Clement, Washington Post Read more »
In defense of ‘dumb’ poll questions
On Tuesday morning, we wrote about a question in the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll that asked: “On a ship in a storm, who would you rather have as the captain?” The response — via Twitter, Facebook and even email (yes, people still email sometimes) — was overwhelming and (stunningly, […] Read more »
Why Surveys Should Pay Attention to Prisoners
Undocumented immigrants are hard to count because they often hesitate to answer strangers’ questions. Homeless people will be missed by landline phone surveys. Prisoners, by contrast, are literally a captive population for the purposes of survey research. And yet many major government polls exclude them entirely. [cont.] Carl Bialik, Wall […] Read more »
Cognitive Interviews in Second Life and Skype
Cognitive interviewing is a commonly used questionnaire pretesting method designed to evaluate the cognitive properties of survey instruments as sources of potential measurement error. … Cognitive interview studies provide rich sources of data on questionnaire problems, but are labor and cost intensive due to time required to recruit and interview […] Read more »
Why Campaign Reporters Are Behind the Curve
… Over the last decade, almost entirely out of view, campaigns have modernized their techniques in such a way that nearly every member of the political press now lacks the specialized expertise to interpret what’s going on. Campaign professionals have developed a new conceptual framework for understanding what moves votes. […] Read more »