Survey Methods Archives Pew Research Center

Leo Migdal

-Dec 3, 2025, 1:45 PM

survey methods archives pew research center

Error bars illustrate the margin of error for a survey estimate by showing how precise that estimate is. Here are some answers to common questions that might help you better understand charts with error bars. This piece explains why, when and how we are weighting our surveys on Americans’ past vote. Knowing who voted is critical to developing an accurate understanding of an election’s outcome. We compared three different online survey methods in certain countries to see which one would most closely replicate our phone results. In our surveys, people are much less likely to skip questions online than when speaking to interviewers in person or on the phone; we explore how offering a “Don’t know” option in online surveys...

We’re in an era where the people most likely to respond to a poll are also the most likely to vote Democratic for president. Pew Research Center’s head methodologist Courtney Kennedy explains how pollsters are tackling this challenge to make samples as representative as possible. NPORS is an annual survey of U.S. adults conducted by the Pew Research Center used to to produce benchmark estimates for several topics. Explore trends in partisan identification among U.S. adults using data from Pew Research Center’s 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. This piece explains why, when and how we are weighting our surveys on Americans’ past vote. Polls are more useful to the public if people have realistic expectations about what surveys can do well – and what they cannot.

NPORS is an annual survey of U.S. adults conducted by the Pew Research Center used to to produce benchmark estimates for several topics. A new study found that 61% of national pollsters used different methods in 2022 than in 2016. And last year, 17% of pollsters used multiple methods to sample or interview people – up from 2% in 2016. By the end of our free, six-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. Looking at final estimates of the outcome of the 2020 U.S.

presidential race, 93% of national polls overstated the Democratic candidate’s support among voters, while nearly as many (88%) did so in 2016. Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World A typical Pew Research Center national survey – regardless of mode – is designed and implemented with a total survey error approach in mind, aimed at minimizing coverage error (deviations of frame population from... Since 2014, Pew Research Center has conducted surveys online in the United States using our American Trends Panel (ATP), a randomly selected, probability-based sample of U.S. adults ages 18 and older. The panel was initially built to supplement the prevalent mode of data collection at the Center during that time: random-digit-dial (RDD) telephone surveys.

However, at this point, the Center has switched almost completely to conducting its U.S. surveys online using the ATP. Panel members are recruited offline, and survey questionnaires are taken via self-administered online surveys. Those who don’t have internet access can take our surveys on internet-enabled tablets we provide to them. Panelists typically take one to three surveys each month. Most of our surveys are representative of the entire noninstitutionalized adult population of the United States.

We do not exclude anyone from our analyses based on demographic characteristics. Some surveys are conducted among subgroups in the panel, such as Black Americans or young people, and may include a supplement sample (called “oversamples”) from another panel such as Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel. Pew Research Center also conducts international surveys that involve sampling and interviewing people in multiple countries. This study was designed to examine changes in national public opinion polling in the United States from 2000 to 2022. The study focuses on two key features: the sample source(s) (where the respondents came from) and the mode(s) (how they were interviewed). The study’s unit of analysis is the organization sponsoring the polling.

In total, 78 such organizations are included. Pew Research Center staff coded the sample sources and interview modes used in national public polls for each organization during each even-numbered year from 2000 to 2022. Odd-numbered years were excluded on purely practical grounds. Hundreds if not thousands of national public polls are released each year, and processing them for this report required substantial labor. Focusing on even-numbered years cut the manual labor roughly in half. As shown in the report, the even-numbered-year approach was able to successfully track major changes in the industry.

The initial coding of sample source and mode of interview was based on information available from a variety of sources including pollster websites, news articles, and the Roper iPoll opinion poll data archive. After this data was compiled, Center staff attempted to contact each organization and ask them to confirm whether the information for that organization was accurate. Most organizations that responded confirmed that the information gathered was accurate. When organizations provided corrections or additions, the study database was updated with that information. Each of these steps is described in greater detail below. The study aimed to examine change over time in national public polls.

To be included, an organization needed to sponsor at least one national public poll in two or more of the years studied (i.e., the even-numbered years from 2000 to 2022). Organizations that sponsored a national public poll in only one of these years are not included. This criterion helped to reduce the influence of organizations that were not consistently involved in polling. The national polls examined in this study are those based on the general public (e.g., U.S. adults ages 18 and older), registered voters or likely voters. Polls that exclusively surveyed a special population (e.g., teachers) were not included, as they often require unique designs.

Additionally, polls described as experimental in their methods or research goals are not included. When The Pew Charitable Trusts created Pew Research Center in 2004, we were surveying Americans using the established industry method at the time: calling people on their landline phones and hoping they’d answer. As the Center marked its 20th anniversary last year, survey methods have become more diverse, and we now conduct most of our interviews online. Public opinion itself has also changed in major ways over the last 20 years, just as the country and world have. Here’s a closer look at how Americans’ views and experiences have evolved on topics ranging from technology and politics to religion and social issues. The past two decades have witnessed the emergence of all sorts of technologies that let people interact with the world in new ways.

For instance, 63% of U.S. adults used the internet in 2004, and 65% owned a cellphone (we weren’t yet asking about smartphones). Today, 95% of U.S. adults browse the internet, and 90% own a smartphone, according to our surveys. Social media was just taking off in 2004, the year Mark Zuckerberg launched “The Facebook” (as it was known then) from his Harvard dorm room. Since then, Americans have widely adopted social media.

These platforms have also become a key source of news for the U.S. public, even as concerns about misinformation and national security have grown. Meanwhile, many traditional news organizations have struggled. In 2004, daily weekday newspaper circulation in the U.S. totaled around 55 million. By 2022, that had fallen to just under 21 million.

Newspapers’ advertising dollars and employee counts have also decreased. To better understand which social media platforms Americans use, Pew Research Center surveyed 5,022 U.S. adults from Feb. 5 to June 18, 2025. SSRS conducted this National Public Opinion Reference Survey (NPORS) for the Center using address-based sampling and a multimode protocol that included web, mail and phone. This way nearly all U.S.

adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race and ethnicity, education, and other categories. Surveys fielded before 2023 were conducted via phone. For more on the mode shift in 2023, read our Q&A. Here are the questions from this survey used for this report, the topline and the methodology.

We also surveyed 5,123 U.S. adults from Feb. 24 to March 2, 2025, to understand how frequently Americans use four specific platforms: YouTube, Facebook, TikTok and X (formerly known as Twitter). Everyone who took part in this survey is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), a group of people recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses who have agreed to take... This kind of recruitment gives nearly all U.S. adults a chance of selection.

Interviews were conducted either online or by telephone with a live interviewer. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other factors. Read more about the ATP’s methodology. Here are the questions from this survey used for this report, the topline and the methodology.

Survey Methods Archives Pew Research Center

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