"Midwest" ... it's a state of mind.
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Political Polling Insights for Survey Professionals: Margins, Metrics, and Methodology
Friday, April 11th, 1-2pm CT: Polling 101: The Who, What, Why, and How of Modern Political Polling?
Friday, April 25th, 12-1 CT: New Measures of Selection Bias for Pre-Election Polling
Friday, May 2nd 12-1pm CT: Election Polling in the "Blue Wall": Lessons from Michigan and Wisconsin
The Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research (MAPOR) is pleased to announce “Political Polling Insights for Survey Professionals: Margins, Metrics, and Methodology” a three-part webinar series offering a deep dive into the world of political polling. While not all survey professionals work in political contexts, the challenges, innovations, and lessons emerging from election polling offer valuable insights for the broader survey community.
Whether you're looking to sharpen your methodological toolkit with lessons learned from political polling or better understand how election polling intersects with your work, this series brings timely, relevant perspectives to the table for any survey professional.
This webinar is free for MAPOR members and all students.
Polling 101: The Who, What, Why, and How of Modern Political Polling?
Friday, April 11th, 1-2pm CT
In this webinar, we will cover the basics of modern political polling. We’ll discuss the types of polls that are often conducted, the methods and modes that are often used, and the unique challenges and opportunities that face the polling industry. We’ll situate political polling in the total survey error framework, assess the overall accuracy of the polling industry in recent years, and discuss nonresponse bias and changes people in the industry have made to address it.
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Joy Wilke is the Polling Director at Blue Labs, a progressive data and analytics firm. At Blue Labs, Joy’s team is responsible for survey data collection across the organization, where they work on everything from questionnaire design, sampling, weighting, programming, and budgeting. She’s worked in polling for 13 years, and has previously held polling positions at Civis Analytics, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and the Gallup Organization. Joy has her Master’s in survey methodology from the University of Michigan, and her PhD in political science from UCLA. |
New Measures of Selection Bias for Pre-Election Polling
Friday, April 25th, 12-1 CT
Recent developments in survey statistics have yielded simple, novel measures of the non-ignorable selection bias in estimates of means, proportions, and regression coefficients that may arise due to deviations from ignorable sample selection, where these deviations might be introduced by the sampling mechanism (e.g., non-probability sampling) or survey nonresponse. This webinar will review the computation of these indicators, the data required to compute them, software tools for computing them, and examples of their use and interpretation based on real survey data. An illustration of the use of these measures to assess the selection bias in pre-election polls conducted for the 2020 presidential election will be presented, followed by discussion of the results and suggestions for future research.
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Brady T. West is a Research Professor in the Survey Methodology Program, located within the Survey Research Center at the Institute for Social Research on the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor (U-M) campus. He earned his PhD from the Michigan Program in Survey and Data Science in 2011. Before that, he received an MA in Applied Statistics from the U-M Statistics Department in 2002, being recognized as an Outstanding First-year Applied Masters student, and a BS in Statistics with Highest Honors and Highest Distinction from the U-M Statistics Department in 2001. His current research interests include the implications of measurement error in auxiliary variables and survey paradata for survey estimation, selection bias in surveys, responsive/adaptive survey design, interviewer effects, and multilevel regression models for clustered and longitudinal data. He is the lead author of a book comparing different statistical software packages in terms of their mixed-effects modeling procedures (Linear Mixed Models: A Practical Guide using Statistical Software, Third Edition, Chapman Hall/CRC Press, 2022), and a second book entitled Applied Survey Data Analysis (with Steven Heeringa and Pat Berglund), the third edition of which will be published by CRC Press in April 2025. He was elected as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association in 2022. |
Webinar 3: Election Polling in the “Blue Wall”: Lessons from Michigan and Wisconsin
Friday, May 2nd 12-1pm CT
Panelists: Emily Swanson (The Associated Press), Charles Franklin (Marquette University) & Barry Burden (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Moderator: Erik Nisbet, Northwestern University
A moderated panel of academic and industry experts will discuss polling performance in key Midwestern states, examining the forces that influenced outcomes and how polling methodology is evolving in these politically pivotal regions.
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Emily Swanson is director of public opinion research at the Associated Press, where she directs AP's polling team and election night decision desk. The decision desk analyzes vote returns, historical data, and the results of AP VoteCast, AP’s pioneering election research survey, to determine when AP officially calls the winner in elections across the country and explains to the world how we know. Swanson played a key part in the development of AP VoteCast. She also oversees polls conducted by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. |
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Charles Franklin (Ph.D, Political Science) is Professor of Law and Public Policy at Marquette Law School, where he directed the Marquette Law School Poll, ranked 2nd of over 500 pollsters nationally by Nate Silver. Prior to Marquette Law School was Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin Madison for 22 years before leaving to join the Marquette Law School in 2012. He is past president of the Society for Political Methodology and an elected Fellow of the Society. From 2002 to 2020 he was a member of the ABC News election night Decision Desk. |
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Barry Burden (Ph.D., Political Science) is Professor of Political Science, Director of the Elections Research Center, and the Lyons Family Chair in Electoral Politics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Burden's research and teaching focus on U.S. elections, political parties, public opinion, representation, and the U.S. Congress. His recent research examines aspects of election administration and voter participation. Burden earned his Ph.D. at The Ohio State University and was a faculty member at Harvard University before joining UW-Madison in 2006. |
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Trent Buskirk's Saturday afternoon Pedagogy Hour was one of many highlights of the 2024 MAPOR conference. His talk, “They are Large, but should they be in Charge? Exploring the Possibility and Implausibility of Large Language Models in Survey Science”, addressed many topics about the use of AI in survey research, specifically through the lens of large language models such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini. Trent has asked us to post his slides for your use beyond the conference, and they are now available here.
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Generative AI 101: How Survey Researchers Can Apply AI
November 8, 2024 at 11:30am CT
Claire Kelley and Sarah Kelley
Child Trends
How can generative AI be used to support survey research? In this introductory webinar we will provide a primer on how generative AI works and how it can be used for survey research. This course will cover a (math free) introduction to how generative AI models are built, and introduce core concepts such as API's, transformers, prompt engineering, few-shot learning, and fine-tuning. We will provide a brief overview of how generative AI is currently used in survey research with a focus on how learners can apply these concepts to their own research.
Registration to this webinar gives you access to the live webinar as well as access to the recording for one price. The cost for MAPOR members is $10, $40 for non-members, and FREE for students with a valid .edu email address.
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Claire Kelley is a co-program area director of data science and senior data scientist at Child Trends, where she conducts and supports research across all program areas. Her primary research interests focus on the intersection of machine learning and social science, particularly in the domains of health and education. In her work, Claire blends traditional quantitative methods with machine learning and software engineering. Some of her recent projects include using computer vision to assess bias in news articles, co-authoring an open source software package for fitting mixed effects models with complex survey weights, and creating an interactive JavaScript-based data story about algebra enrollment. In addition to writing software and conducting research, Claire is passionate about creating a community of practice around data science for social research. She regularly presents her research and teaches professional development courses at data science and social science conferences including PyData, the American Association for Public Opinion Research, and the American Education Research Association. Prior to joining Child Trends, Claire worked as a data scientist at the American Institutes for Research (AIR) and at Merck. At AIR, Claire worked on a variety of data engineering and data science projects and led the data visualization and reporting working group. At Merck, she worked on e-commerce data science, including developing a parallelized system for generating product recommendations and using time series models for forecasting product demand. She holds a bachelor’s degree in statistics from Yale University and a master’s degree in quantitative methods from Columbia University. |
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Sarah Kelley is a co-program area director of data science and senior data scientist whose research focuses on applying data science techniques— especially natural language processing, computer vision, and machine learning—to answer questions related to social science and education. She has worked on a diverse set of social science problems, from using social media data to explore public conversations around child abuse in Haiti, to using big data and geospatial statistics to understand drivers of the opioid crisis, to using natural language processing to gain insight into political polarization online. Sarah is particularly excited about the potential of data science methods to augment traditional research methods. She seeks to make her work accessible to general audiences through data visualization. She also hopes to support quantitative researchers by using data science methods to create and integrate rich data sets, providing data access through application programming interfaces, and linking data sets using machine learning methods. Previously, Sarah was a data scientist at the American Institutes for Research, where she led projects focused on applying computer vision algorithms in education contexts, developing large-scale data processing pipelines, and using machine learning techniques to improve predictive modeling. She holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Yale University and a master’s degree in data science from the University of California, Berkeley. |
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It’s time to elect the next MAPOR council members to begin roles in November 2024. We currently have two positions open for election: Vice-President/President-Elect and Associate Conference Chair. After roughly a month of open nominations, we’ve got some wonderful candidates running this year. Their bios are below.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to president@mapor.org.
Vice-President/President-Elect
Benjamin Schapiro
Benjamin Schapiro is a Research Scientist at NORC at the University of Chicago. A graduate of the University of Chicago, he has worked at NORC since 2014, primarily on the General Social Survey. His research focuses on long-term trends in public opinion, mode effects, and the lived experience of the survey interview. Benjamin has been involved with MAPOR since 2014 and has served on the executive committee for the past three years as a member-at-large, and then Communications Chair and the Website Chair. He has also served as the co-chair of the AAPOR Welcoming Committee.
David Sterett
David Sterrett is a Principal Research Scientist in the Public Affairs and Media Research Department at NORC at the University of Chicago. His research focuses on political attitudes, survey methodology, and the public’s news habits. Prior to joining NORC in 2014, he received his PhD in political science from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
David has enjoyed attending every MAPOR conference since 2010. He served as the student liaison for the MAPOR executive council when in graduate school, was the Conference Chair in 2021, and he is currently serving as a member-at-large on the executive council. David also enjoys attending AAPOR conferences and is currently serving on the AAPOR Membership and Chapter Relations Committee.
Associate Conference Chair
Lindsey Witt-Swanson
Lindsey Witt-Swanson is a Research Director in the Public Affairs and Media Research Department at NORC at the University of Chicago working with federal agencies, non-profit organizations, for-profit companies, and academics. She received her BA in Political Science at Creighton University and her MS in Survey Research and Methodology at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln.
Lindsey has served on MAPOR council since 2019 first serving as an at-large council member and currently serving as the Secretary-Treasurer since the position was vacated in April 2021. She also serves as co-treasurer for the International Field Directors and Technologies Conference (IFD&TC) and has been a member of AAPOR and MAPOR since 2011.
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49th Annual Conference
Friday, November 22 - Saturday, November 23, 2024
Embassy Suites Chicago Downtown (600 N. State Street)
“Bridging Trends from our Past with Insights for Tomorrow"
Our conference will focus on two important issues facing public opinion research in 2024 – the 2024 election and the acceleration of artificial intelligence. We will explore public opinion trends on social and political issues to understand the election and the key issues that affected the outcome. We will also consider how the rise in artificial intelligence may affect our field and how we collect, analyze and report public opinion data.
Friday morning short course:
"Beyond the Basics: Advanced Questionnaire Design for Writing Questions about Events and Behaviors"
Jennifer Dykema University of Wisconsin–Madison, MAPOR Fellow
Nora Cate Schaeffer, University of Wisconsin–Madison, MAPOR Fellow
Friday afternoon keynote address:
“Young Women and Men in the U.S.: A Political Mismatch?”
Lydia Saad, Gallup, Director of U.S. Social Research
Saturday afternoon pedagogy hour:
“They are Large, but should they be in Charge? Exploring the Possibility and Implausibility of Large Language Models in Survey Science”
Trent Buskirk, Old Dominion University, Professor and Data Science Fellow
Early registration discount ends November 8th at 11:59 p.m. CST
- Non-student early-bird registration for in-person attendees: $130 ($155 after November 8th).
- Student early-bird registration: $50 ($75 after November 8th).
MAPOR is committed to supporting conference attendance regardless of your financial situation. If you have concerns about the costs for the conference registration or travel expenses related to the conference please visit https://www.mapor.org/support-grants/ to learn more about support grant opportunities.
To help us keep the conference affordable, we encourage you to reserve your hotel room using our conference block at Embassy Suites. Rooms are $209 for a room with 1 King bed or $229 for a room with 2 Double Beds (plus taxes).
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The Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research Conference Committee is hard at work planning MAPOR’s
November 22-23, 2024
Embassy Suites Chicago Downtown
600 N. State Street
Call for Abstracts
Submit By July 26th, 2024
The Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research’s annual conference welcomes abstract submissions on any topic related to public opinion research, communication, or survey research methodology. This year, we are accepting submissions for the following types of presentations: papers, posters, and panels of papers.
“Bridging Trends from our Past with Insights for Tomorrow”
Our conference will focus on two important issues facing public opinion research in 2024 – the 2024 election and the acceleration of artificial intelligence. We will explore public opinion trends on social and political issues to understand the election and the key issues that affected the outcome. We will also consider how the rise in artificial intelligence may affect our field and how we collect, analyze and report public opinion data.
We encourage abstract submissions on all facets of research related to public opinion, communication, survey research, and their methodologies. Topics may include but are not limited to: politics and public opinion; social media and public opinion; journalism, media, and public opinion; public opinion on social, economic, and political issues; questionnaire design; data collection issues and strategies; existing and new methods for collecting data from respondents; online panel data collection; nonresponse; total survey error; machine learning, artificial intelligence, big data, and data science; location and geographic information; challenges facing the field due to technological and societal shifts; the ethical use of public opinion and survey data; qualitative and mixed-method research techniques; cross-cultural research; hard-to-reach and historically underrepresented populations; and data quality issues.
Submissions: Abstracts of 300 words or fewer can be submitted here. In addition to a title and abstract, you will be asked to provide the name, institutional affiliation, and email address for all authors. The same author’s name may appear as first author on a maximum of two submissions. To allow for blind review, please remove all personally identifying information from the abstract’s text before submission.
Note to student authors: If the lead author is a student who will be enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate program at the time of the conference, you may submit your paper to the MAPOR Fellows Student Paper Competition (see additional information on the MAPOR Fellows Student Paper Competition, available at www.mapor.org). When submitting a student paper to the competition, the student submitter will be asked to provide the name and e-mail address of a faculty mentor, who will need to endorse the paper when it is submitted. The student paper competition team committee will reach out after the abstract submission window has closed. If you have questions, reach out to president@mapor.org.
Panel Proposals: A panel is a session that focuses on a common theme and includes 4 or 5 participants. A panel proposal requires a description of 300 words or fewer discussing the issues to be addressed and their importance. Also, submissions should list the potential panelists, their institutional affiliations, email addresses, and tentative titles of presentations. Panels related to the conference theme are especially encouraged.
Submission Information: All abstracts must be posted no later than 11:59pm CDT on Friday July 26, 2024. Accepted papers sharing a theme will be scheduled during a paper session. Papers with more individualized topics will be scheduled during a poster session. MAPOR considers both types of presentation equally valuable. All submitters will be notified via e-mail by August 30th of their abstract’s acceptance status. For questions or problems with the submission process, please contact the 2024 MAPOR conference chair, Jenny Marlar at: abstracts@mapor.org.
Travel Grants: The MAPOR Council will be offering two types of support grants for the Annual Conference: the MAPOR Student Support Grant and the MAPOR Colleague Grant. More details on these awards can be found here: http://www.mapor.org/support-grants/.
Stay in touch with MAPOR!
Members of MAPOR can Join the MAPORNet listserv, where members ask questions to one-another, share information about events and jobs, and hear about updates in the field. To join, contact MAPOR’s Secretary-Treasurer.