Research Explainers

The way polling questions are asked can influence people's answers. Survey experiments are one way to measure the degree to which different questions elicit different answers.

Question 1: Measuring religious identity How does Pew Research Center measure the religious identity of survey respondents and the religious composition of the U.S.? Answer: Generally, we rely on respondents’ self-identification.  A key question we ask in many surveys is: “What is your present religion, if any? Are you Protestant, Roman Catholic, Mormon, Orthodox such […]

For a recent study on automated accounts and Twitter, we had to answer a fundamental question: Which accounts are bots and which accounts aren’t? Read a Q&A with Stefan Wojcik, a computational social scientist at the Center and one of the report’s authors, on how he and his colleagues navigated this question.

The U.S. has more foreign students enrolled in its colleges and universities than any other country in the world. Explore data about foreign students in the U.S. higher education system.

In a short video, Pew Research Center researchers explain how they produced the Center’s wide-ranging new survey of 1,001 American Muslims.

Read an interview with Director of Journalism Research Amy Mitchell, who helped author the study.

In 2020, census questionnaires may for the first time be offered in Arabic, now the fastest-growing language in the U.S. But the Census Bureau faces a challenge not only in translating the language but also in adjusting the appearance of the questionnaire for those accustomed to reading and writing Arabic script.

Why aren’t Asian Americans shown as a separate group when differences among whites, blacks and Hispanics are discussed in survey reports? It's a good question, so we put together a summary of some of the methodological and other issues on accurately polling U.S. Asians.

Jesse Holcomb, associate director of research at the Center, explains how the new report was put together.

Just what is "economic inequality"? Depends on whom you ask.