Table Of ContentThe Oxford Handbook of
P O L L I N G
A N D S U RV E Y
M E T H O D S
The Oxford Handbook of
POLLING
AND SURVEY
METHODS
Edited by
LONNA RAE ATKESON
and
R. MICHAEL ALVAREZ
1
3
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Atkeson, Lonna Rae, 1965– editor. | Alvarez, R. Michael, 1964– editor.
Title: The Oxford handbook of polling and survey methods /
edited by Lonna Rae Atkeson and R. Michael Alvarez.
Description: New York : Oxford University Press, [2018]
Identifiers: LCCN 2018008316 | ISBN 9780190213299 (Hard Cover) |
ISBN 9780190213305 (updf) | ISBN 9780190903824 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Public opinion polls. | Social surveys.
Classification: LCC HM1236 .O945 2018 | DDC 303.3/8—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018008316
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
Contents
Contributors ix
Introduction to Polling and Survey Methods 1
Lonna Rae Atkeson and R. Michael Alvarez
PART I SURVEY DESIGN
1. Total Survey Error 13
Herbert F. Weisberg
2. Longitudinal Surveys: Issues and Opportunities 28
D. Sunshine Hillygus and Steven A. Snell
3. Mixing Survey Modes and Its Implications 53
Lonna Rae Atkeson and Alex N. Adams
4. Taking the Study of Political Behavior Online 76
Stephen Ansolabehere and Brian F. Schaffner
5. Sampling for Studying Context: Traditional Surveys and New
Directions 97
James G. Gimpel
6. Questionnaire Science 113
Daniel L. Oberski
PART II DATA COLLECTION
7. Exit Polling Today and What the Future May Hold 141
Anthony M. Salvanto
8. Sampling Hard- to- Locate Populations: Lessons from Sampling
Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) 155
Prakash Adhikari and Lisa A. Bryant
vi Contents
9. Reaching Beyond Low-H anging Fruit: Surveying Low-I ncidence
Populations 181
Justin A. Berry, Youssef Chouhoud, and Jane Junn
10. Improving the Quality of Survey Data Using CAPI Systems in
Developing Countries 207
Mitchell A. Seligson and Daniel E. Moreno Morales
11. Survey Research in the Arab World 220
Lindsay J. Benstead
12. The Language- Opinion Connection 249
Efrén O. Pérez
PART III ANALYSIS AND PRESENTATION
13. Issues in Polling Methodologies: Inference and Uncertainty 275
Jeff Gill and Jonathan Homola
14. Causal Inference with Complex Survey Designs: Generating
Population Estimates Using Survey Weights 299
Ines Levin and Betsy Sinclair
15. Aggregating Survey Data to Estimate Subnational Public Opinion 316
Paul Brace
16. Latent Constructs in Public Opinion 338
Christopher Warshaw
17. Measuring Group Consciousness: Actions Speak Louder
Than Words 363
Kim Proctor
18. Cross-N ational Surveys and the Comparative Study of Electoral
Systems: When Country/E lections Become Cases 388
Jeffrey A. Karp and Jack Vowles
19. Graphical Visualization of Polling Results 410
Susanna Makela, Yajuan Si, and Andrew Gelman
20. Graphical Displays for Public Opinion Research 439
Saundra K. Schneider and William G. Jacoby
Contents vii
PART IV NEW FRONTIERS
21. Survey Experiments: Managing the Methodological Costs
and Benefits 483
Yanna Krupnikov and Blake Findley
22. Using Qualitative Methods in a Quantitative Survey Research
Agenda 505
Kinsey Gimbel and Jocelyn Newsome
23. Integration of Contextual Data: Opportunities and Challenges 533
Armando Razo
24. Measuring Public Opinion with Social Media Data 555
Marko Klašnja, Pablo Barberá, Nicholas Beauchamp,
Jonathan Nagler, and Joshua A. Tucker
25. Expert Surveys as a Measurement Tool: Challenges and
New Frontiers 583
Cherie D. Maestas
26. The Rise of Poll Aggregation and Election Forecasting 609
Natalie Jackson
Index 633
Contributors
Alex N. Adams is a PhD student in the Department of Political Science at the University
of New Mexico. His research interests focus on political psychology and survey
methodology.
Prakash Adhikari is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Central Michigan
University. His research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of comparative pol-
itics and international relations, with specific focus on civil war, forced migration, and
transitional justice.
R. Michael Alvarez is a Professor in the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences at
the California Institute of Technology. His primary research interests are public opinion
and voting behavior, election technology and administration, electoral politics, and sta-
tistical and computer modeling.
Stephen Ansolabehere is the Frank G. Thompson Professor of Government at Harvard
University where he studies elections, democracy, and the mass media. He is a Principal
Investigator of the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, and his principal areas
are electoral politics, representation, and public opinion.
Lonna Rae Atkeson is a Professor and Regents Lecturer in the Department of Political
Science at the University of New Mexico where she directs the Institute for Social
Research and the Center for the Study of Voting, Elections and Democracy. Her primary
interests are the areas of survey methodology, election science and administration, and
political behavior.
Pablo Barberá is an Assistant Professor of Computational Social Science in the
Methodology Department at the London School of Economics. His primary areas of re-
search include social media and politics, computational social science, and comparative
electoral behavior and political representation.
Nicholas Beauchamp is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Northeastern
University. He specializes in U.S. politics (political behavior, campaigns, opinion, polit-
ical psychology, and social media) and political methodology (quantitative text analysis,
machine learning, Bayesian methods, agent- based models, and networks).
Lindsay J. Benstead is an Associate Professor of Political Science in the Mark O. Hatfield
School of Government and Interim Director of the Middle East Studies Center (MESC)
at Portland State University, Contributing Scholar in the Women’s Rights in the Middle
