Measurement Challenges in Public Opinion Surveys

Abstract

Political research often measures complex public attitudes towards political issues, actors or phenomena using surveys. However, measurement issues due to poorly phrased questions and/or answering categories, to respondent and/or interviewer error are prevalent in all kinds of survey data. Often political surveys aim to measure potentially sensitive attitudes, e.g., attitudes about radical right parties, ideologies, LGTBQ rights or abortion. Social desirability pressures make it difficult to measure these attitudes. We invite papers that evaluate different kinds of political attitudes or aim to improve the measurement of political attitudes in surveys. In relation, we are interested in contributions presenting new measures, e.g., using survey experiments. Survey experiments are commonly used to study political phenomena in a controlled environment, but on larger population samples to also enhance external validity. Yet, many of the results derived on their basis require validation and replication in order to ensure the experimental design estimates the behaviour in question (see e.g., Krumpal et al. 2015). We particularly encourage contributions that critically investigate and/or validate findings based on survey experiments (conjoint designs, framing experiments, or novel question designs, such as list experiments or crosswise designs, as well as implicit measures). We also welcome papers discussing the virtues and vices of survey experiments.