Since 1998, MAPOR has recognized excellence in student papers presented at its annual conference. These annual awards are overseen and refereed by MAPOR’s Fellows. Beginning in 2011, the MAPOR Fellows Student Paper Competition has bestowed two awards: one for the best paper in public opinion, and another for the best paper in methodology.
The award for best paper in public opinion was renamed in 2015 to honor Dr. Doris A. Graber (1923-2018), who was deeply involved with MAPOR at its inception. She served as president in 1980-81 and became MAPOR’s inaugural Fellow in 1988.
The award for best paper in methodology was renamed in 2017 to honor the memory of Dr. Allan L. McCutcheon (1950-2015), who contributed greatly to MAPOR as president in 2003-04. McCutcheon was named MAPOR Fellow in 2007.
Doris A. Graber Award for Best Public Opinion Paper (Before 2016: Best Public Opinion Paper)
| Year | Winner | Paper Title |
| 2023 | Jonathan Schulman | Status Anxiety, Rhetorical Entrapment, and U.S. Foreign Policy |
| 2022 | Robin Bayes | Moral Conviction and Public Evaluation of Science |
| 2021 | Eileen Wu | The Moderating Role of Democratic Governance in the Association between Personal Values and Political Ideologies |
| 2020 | Liwei Shen | A Mind is Not Closed for No Reason – Why Do Some Chinese Dispute the Apollo Moon Landing |
| 2019 | Margaret Brower | Reframing Women’s Issues: Intersectional Frames & Policy Agendas |
| 2018 | Beyza Ekin Buyuker | Democracy and the “Other”: Outgroup Attitudes and Support for Anti-Democratic Norms |
| 2017 | Yangsun Hong | Social media use, exposure to disagreement, and offline expressive participation: The moderating role of self-censorship |
| 2016 | Ozan Kuru | De-Monopolization of Polls: What Do Ordinary Citizens Make of Different Quantifications? |
| 2015 | Natalee Kate Steely | Virtual vitriol: A comparative analysis of incivility in discussion of forums of online mainstream news outlets and political blogs |
| 2014 |
Rachel Reis Mourão, Magdalena Saldaña, & Shannon McGregor
| Online networking and protest attitudes and behaviors in the Americas |
| 2013 | David Sterrett | The Self-Interested Public: How Self-Interest Affects Policy Preferences |
| 2012 | Samara Klar | The Influence of Competing Identity Primes on Political Preferences |
| 2011 | Bryan McLaughlin & David Wise | Testing the God Strategy: How Candidates’ Religious Discourse Interacts with Voter Religiosity to Affect Political Outcomes |
Public Opinion Paper Award Honorable Mentions
| Year | Winner | Paper Title |
| 2022 | Jeremy Levy | Finding Ideological Constraint: Narrow Pockets Instead of Wide Ranges |
| 2015 | Min Seon Jeong | Relationship of news media consumption, political efficacy and the moderating effect of political interest in the U.S. 2012 Presidential election |
| 2012 | Jingxian Wang | Interaction of Media, Public Opinion and Foreign Policy in China: A Case Study of Nanjing-Nagoya Relation Suspension |
| 2012 | Jiyoun Kim | Selective Attention, Primed-Encoding and the Role of Language in Mediated Scientific Messages Processing |
| 2011 | Brendan R. Watson | The Agenda-Setting Effect of “A–List” Political Blog: A Time–Series Analysis of Presidential Approval Ratings in 2009 |
| 2011 | Samara Mani Klar | Identity Matters: Independents as Politically Engaged Citizens |
Allan L. McCutcheon Award for Best Methodology Paper (Before 2017: Best Methodology Paper)
| Year | Winner | Paper Title |
| 2023 | Tiffany Neman | When and Why Does Nonresponse Occur? Comparing the Determinants of Initial Unit Nonresponse and Panel Attrition |
| 2022 | Evgenia Kapousouz | What do Social Desirability Scales Measure? |
| 2021 | Micha Fischer | Parametric and Tree-Based Models for Missing Data Imputation |
| 2020 | Angelica Phillips and Rachel Stenger | The Effect of Burdensome Survey Questions on Data Quality in an Omnibus Survey |
| 2018 | Ali Rafei | Improving Rotation Group Bias in the Current Population Survey using a modified Hidden Markov Model |
| 2017 | Felicitas Mittereder | Can previous response behavior predict future breakoff in Web surveys? |
| 2015 | Colleen McClain | Identifying psychosocial correlates of response in panel research: Evidence from the Health and Retirement Study |
| 2013 | Yuli Patrick Hsieh | Testing Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Recall Aids for Personal Networks Surveys |
| 2012 | Chan Zhang | Speeding in Web Surveys: The Tendency to Answer Very Fast and its Association with Straightlining |
| 2011 | Brian M. Wells | Accounting for Nonresponse Bias in the Nebraska Behavioral Health Consumer Survey |
Methodology Paper Award Honorable Mentions
| Year | Winner | Paper Title |
| 2012 | Mahmoud Elkasabi | Joint Calibration as a Technique for Dual Frame Sample Estimation |
| 2011 | Christopher Antoun | Interviewer Ratings of Respondents Who Changed their Answers about Sex Partners |
Best Student Paper Awards (Prior to 2011, public opinion and survey methods award winners were not distinguished.)
| Year | Winner | Paper Title |
| 2010 | Emily K. Vraga, Courtney N. Johnson, D. Jasun Carr, Mitchell Bard, Leticia Bode, & Bryan McLaughlin | Filmed in Front of a Live Studio Audience: Using Laughter to Offset Aggression in Political Entertainment Programming |
| 2010 | Mitchell Bard | Do Latinos exist? Comparing the political engagement of Mexicans, Puerto Ricans and Cubans in the United States |
| 2009 | Thomas B. Ksiazek | A Network Analytic Approach to Understanding Cross-Platform Audience Behavior |
| 2008 | Melissa R. Gotlieb, Itay Gabay, & Stephanie Edgerly | Effects of Gain-Loss News Framing and Political Ideology on Audience Sympathy |
| 2005 | Lindsay H. Hoffman & Jason B. Reineke | Coorientation in a Public Opinion Context: Predicting Accurate Perceptions of Community Opinion |
| 2005 | Ray Pingree & Rosanne Scholl | Media Effects on the Tendency to Reason |
| 2005 | Jason B. Reineke | Doing Unto Others as One Does Unto One’s Self: Exploring the Association Between Support for Public Censorship and Self-Censorship |
| 2004 | Bruce Hardy | Mobilizing Information Online: The Effects of Primary-Source and Secondary-Source Website use on Political Participation |
| 2004 | Michael Huge | Measurable hesitation as a precursor to self-censorship: Replication and extension of the minority slowness effect |
| 2004 | Lindsay H. Hoffman | Mobilizing information as a link to political participation: A content analysis of online and print newspapers |
| 2004 | Michael Xenos | Information environments and voter deliberation: Unraveling the effects of campaign intensity |
| 2003 | Brandon Rottinghaus | Mobilizing the “Silent Center”: Alternative Measures of Public Opinion on Vietnam Within the Johnson White House |
| 2003 | John C. Besley, Janie Diels, & Erik Nisbet | Voting and Authoritarianism: The Mediating Role of Media Use, Efficacy and Trust |
| 2003 | Lindsay H. Hoffman & Michael E. Huge | Media Frames of Protest Groups: The Effects of Exposure on Perceived Legitimacy |
| 2002 | Matthew C. Nisbet & Eric C. Nisbet | The Origins of Morality and Equality: Social Structure and Public Opinion About Gay Rights |
| 2002 | Fang Yang | Mass media and rally effect in international crisis: Media’s integrating role in the wake of Sept. 11 terrorist attacks |
| 2002 | Justin Horvath | The Big Dog That Did Not Run: An Analysis of President Clinton’s Role In The 2000 Presidential Election |
| 2001 | Christine O’Brien | Public Opinion About Environmental Issues and the Media: A Preliminary Agenda Setting Study |
| 2001 | Jaeho Cho & Heejo Keum | Probing Psychological Processes Underlying Framing Effects: Knowledge Activation as a Mediator of News Frame Effects on Social Judgment |
| 2001 | Brandon Rottinghaus | The Buck Stops Here: Exploring Formal and Informal Methods of Gauging Public Opinion in the Truman White House |
| 2000 | Jennifer Oats-Sargent | Representing the public: The use of polls in deliberative policymaking processes |
| 1999 | Gregor Petric | The spiral of silence among Slovenian citizens: Some alternative solutions |
| 1998 | Dietram A. Scheufele & Patricia Moy | Twenty-five years of the spiral of silence: A conceptual review |