Roper Public Opinion Data with Kathleen Weldon

ISPS CO-SPONSORED EVENT WITH DISSC & YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Join DISSC, the Institution for Social and Policy Studies (ISPS), and the Yale University Library for a lunch talk with Kathleen Weldon, Director of Data Operations and Communications, at The Roper Center for Public Opinion.

This is a hybrid event and registration is required at this link.  A calendar invitation with a Zoom link will be sent to those able to join remotely after you RSVP.

Public opinion data is essential information to many important social science questions. For example, in 2020, Georgetown political scientists Ladd & Podkul used historical public opinion data in their chapter on, “Sowing Distrust of the News Media as an Electoral Strategy.”  Sides, Tesler & Vavreck also relied on public opinion for their work on “Gender Attitudes and American Public Opinion in the Trump Era.” In both cases, and many others, data sets were obtained from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research.

In this presentation by the Roper Center’s Director of Data Operations and Communications, Kathleen Weldon will provide an overview of the datasets available in the Roper archive, the tools available to Yale users such as the iPoll application, and advanced tips tailored to researchers interested in downloading and using the data. Interested participants will have the opportunity to follow up with questions specific to their projects.

The Roper Center is a recognized leader in the collection, preservation, and dissemination of public opinion data. The Center holds a unique and extensive collection of public opinion data from the U.S. and around the world, including over 820,000 questions and 25,000 datasets dating back to the 1930s. Among the Center’s assets are datasets and questions from the Time Sharing Experiments in the Social Sciences (TESS). Other notable collections include pre-election polls, exit polls, U.S. state-level polls, social issues, finances and the economy, education, health, international affairs, social movements and change, and historical events. Data is provided by major survey organizations, including commercial and media survey organizations, and other academic, nonprofit (e.g., Pew), and private industry pollsters. The Center, established in 1947, has played a key role in the development of the field of public opinion research and in the improvement of the practice of survey research.