#46: Polling 101 with Ashley Amaya

Dr. Ashley Amaya is a senior survey methodologist at Pew Research Center. She has a PhD in Survey Methodology and is an expert when it comes to polling the country’s opinions. Our conversation highlights how the simple polling numbers you see on the news are the results of months—sometimes years—of work.Dr. Amaya shares how Pew recruits and maintains high-quality samples of survey respondents, carefully designs the questions that get asked, and checks their surveys’ demographics against the broader population. We also talk about what consumers should look for when assessing a poll’s legitimacy and where else experts are looking for the public’s opinion.A few things that come up in this episode:65% of U.S. adults think there is intelligent life on other planets (Pew Research Center; June 30, 2021)Pew Report: “Measuring the Risks of Panel Conditioning in Survey Research” (June 9, 2021)Sampling methods: address-based sampling vs. random digit dialing (RDD) vs. non-probability samplingWeighting survey responses by demographics (see this page on Pew’s website)The importance of well-written survey questions (see this video from Pew)For a transcript of this episode, visit: http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/episode/polling-101-with-ashley-amaya/Check out my new audio course on Knowable: "The Science of Persuasion."Learn more about Opinion Science at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/ and follow @OpinionSciPod on Twitter.Join me over at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/OpinionScienceLearn more about Opinion Science and catch up on all the episodes at http://opinionsciencepodcast.com/.