MAPOR 2023 Conference Call for Abstracts

Patrick Hsieh

The Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research Conference Committee is hard at work planning MAPOR’s

48th Annual Conference

Held November 17-18, 2023 at Embassy Suites Chicago Downtown!

Call for Abstracts

Extended to August 18th, 2023!

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, methodological briefs, posters, and panels of papers. We are particularly interested in papers that relate to our conference theme:

“Of Intersections and Opportunities: Exploring the Potentials of Public Opinion Research”

As our research landscape continues to change and evolve since the pandemic, MAPOR hopes to broaden our pursuit of collaboration in the survey and public opinion research disciplines. To continue our learning about the changing research landscape, our conference theme asks the MAPOR community to consider the innovations and changes that have occurred in survey research in recent years. Specifically, we encourage abstract submissions on topics that cut across multiple disciplines and research contexts, such as user/respondent-centered survey design, usability of web or mobile surveys, and the ethical use of public opinion and survey data.

More broadly, we welcome 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: questionnaire design; interviewers’ role in data collection; respondent behaviors; respondent recruitment for hard-to-reach populations; nonresponse or data quality assessment; total survey error; emerging technologies or methods for data collection; use of administrative records or alternative data sources for surveys; machine learning and data science; politics and public opinion; social media and public opinion; public opinion on social, economic, and political issues; cross-cultural research; and qualitative and mixed-method research techniques.

Submissions: Please visit the link: https://cvent.me/nwQGaq to submit your abstracts, with a limit of 300 words or fewer. In addition to a title and abstract, you will be asked to provide the name, institutional affiliation, and email address of all authors. The same author’s name may appear as the 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 all authors are students 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. Please visit mapor.org for details. 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. The faculty mentor will be asked to send an email of 25 words or fewer endorsing the paper when the full paper is submitted.

Panel Proposals: Panels focus on a common theme and include 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 11:59 pm CDT on Friday, August 18, 2023. 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 September 23 of their abstract’s acceptance status. For questions or problems with the submission process, please contact the 2022 MAPOR conference chair, Y. Patrick Hsieh at: abstracts@mapor.org.

Travel Grants: The MAPOR Council will be offering two types of support grants for the 2023 Annual Conference: the MAPOR Student Support Grant and the MAPOR Colleague Grant. More details on these awards can be found on mapor.org.

Candidates for Office – 2022-2023

Kevin Ulrich

Candidate for Vice-President / President Elect

Leah Dean, PhD

Leah Dean’s first involvement with MAPOR was in 2018, when she presented a portion of her dissertation work. Since then, Leah has earned a BA in French Language and Literature from Transylvania University, a Master of Public and International Affairs from the University of Pittsburgh, and her PhD in Political Science from the University of Cincinnati. She has been a survey scientist with RTI International’s Survey Research Division since April 2020. Her expertise is in health surveys at the national level. She served as MAPOR’s Associate Conference Chair in 2021, where she assisted in the development and execution of the hybrid conference planning. Leah currently serves as the 2022 Conference Chair. Leah looks forward to the opportunity to help MAPOR continue to grow and evolve in its engagement with professionals and students.

Candidate for Associate Conference Chair

Jenny Marlar, PhD

Jenny Marlar has worked for Gallup since 2008 and is the Director of Survey Research. Her work focuses on methods for recruiting and retaining probability-based panels, address-based sampling methodologies, emerging technologies for data collection, and surveying hard-to-reach populations. She is a member of the AAPOR Standards Committee and the AAPOR Online Panel Taskforce and is excited about the opportunity to serve MAPOR. Jenny has an MS and PhD in Survey Research and Methodology from the University of Nebraska and attended her first MAPOR conference as a student in 2008. She remembers that first experience (and every MAPOR conference since) for its strong program of papers and speakers and for being friendly and welcoming. Prior to beginning her graduate studies in 2006, Jenny was an event planner and owned an event planning and decorating business. 

Candidate for Associate Conference Chair

Rebecca Powell, PhD

Rebecca J. Powell is a Research Survey Methodologist at RTI International. Rebecca joined MAPOR 10 years ago as a graduate student from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she earned a PhD in Survey Research and Methodology. Her main research focus is on improving survey response quality through visual design principles in self-administered questionnaires, and her work has been published in the Journal of Survey Statistics and Methodology. Rebecca is a strong advocate of continuous education. As a certified RStudio tidyverse trainer, she has taught multiple courses on analysis of survey data in R for MAPOR and AAPOR. Rebecca joined the MAPOR Executive Council in 2021 and serves on the Online Learning Committee where she organizes opportunities for students and professionals to learn about best practices and new methods in survey research and analysis. She hopes to continue her work on the MAPOR Executive Council as Associate Conference Chair to further promote continuous education for all MAPOR members.

2022 Student Fellowship Program

Hillary Hanson

Deadline extended!!

The Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research is excited to announce its open call for proposals for the 2022 Student Fellowship Program. This is a unique opportunity for students to work with a MAPOR fellow and receive guidance on the development of an original research project. Students selected to take part in the program will be matched with a MAPOR fellow based on the topic of their abstract. The MAPOR Executive Council will choose up to 4 proposals for participation in the program and the selected proposals will be accepted for presentation during the 2022 MAPOR Conference. Each selected student will be awarded $250 and the conference registration will be waived for the authors of the selected proposals. 

Eligibility

All students enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate program on April 17th, 2022 are eligible to participate in the program. If more than one author plans to collaborate, please make sure that all authors are students. The topic of the proposed papers should be related either to public opinion or survey methodology. If the students propose a quantitative study, please, make sure you have access to the data before you submit a proposal. Membership in MAPOR is not required to participate, but students are expected to be MAPOR members at the time of the conference. Preferably, students can submit one proposal as the primary author. Preferably, the participants will attend the conference in person. Students who will be selected for the Student Fellowship Program will not be eligible for the student paper award during this year, but they will be eligible for travel awards.

Procedure

To be considered please submit a proposal to the MAPOR Executive Council for the Student Fellowship Program. The proposal should be between 500 and 1000 words. It should include a very brief literature review and an importance statement. If the proposal is quantitative, please make sure you identify and describe the dataset. Send the proposal by 11:59 CDT, Sunday, April 17th, 2022. In the email include a subject line that says “MAPOR Student Fellowship Program”. In addition, the student should identify a faculty mentor and ask them to write a letter of recommendation. Both the student proposal and the letter of recommendation should be sent to Kevin Ulrich, ulrichkv@uchicago.edu. The selected students for the Fellowship Program will be announced by May 1st.

Students’ responsibilities

The selected students will be responsible for their communication with their mentor. MAPOR Executive Council will suggest a communication plan. However, the students that will be selected for the Student Fellowship Program can suggest a different communication plan if they wish. Both the student and the mentor should agree upon the communication plan in writing and the communication plan should also be emailed to Kevin Ulrich. The students are expected to work on the paper with the guidance of the mentor. In addition, the students who will be selected will be required to present their paper in MAPOR 2022.

If you have any questions, please email us at ekapou2@uic.edu.