Polls and Surveys

Understanding Polls

NewsUniversity has just released a new self-paced tutorial on understanding and interpreting polls. Enrollment is free to registered users. (Registration is also free!)

News University is a project of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies and provides online training and education opportunities for journalists. They have a number of tutorials freely available to registered users.

Finding Polls and Surveys

• Roper Center Public Opinion Archives [NYU-Only]
  Contains nearly half a million survey questions and answers asked in the US over the last 65 years by more than 150 survey organizations.
• Polling the Nations [NYU-Only]
  Covers polls taken on a variety of subjects all over the world; includes poll question and participants’ responses. Includes a handy selection of pre-defined topics for locating polls. Coverage is 1986 forward. Includes US and international surveys.
• Gallup Brain [NYU-Only]
  Includes answers to more than 125,000 questions and responses from more than 3.5 million people interviewed by The Gallup Poll since 1935.

• PollingReport.com
  This site includes some free national polls. (State polls require a subscription.) Polls typically go from 1998 forward. This source tends to focus on polls of a political and social nature.
• Pew Research Center
  This site serves as a gateway to the eight Pew projects:* Pew Research Center for the People & the Press
  * Project for Excellence in Journalism
  * Stateline.org
  * Pew Internet & American Life Project
  * Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life
  * Pew Hispanic Center
  * Pew Global Attitudes Project
  * Social & Demographic Trends
  “The Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan “fact tank” that provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. It does so by conducting public opinion polling and social science research; by reporting news and analyzing news coverage; and by holding forums and briefings. It does not take positions on policy issues.”(from the Pew Center: http://pewresearch.org/about/)