Communication Studies

Polls and Surveys

Collections of Public Opinion

America’s Youth, 1977-1988 (Ref HQ796 .A54 1988)

American Attitudes: Who Thinks What About the Issues that Shape Our Lives (Ref HN 90 .P8 M58 1998)

An American Profile – Opinions and Behavior, 1972-1989 (Ref HN 90 .P8 W6 1990)

Human Values and Beliefs (Ref HM 73 .I544 1998)

Public Opinion: 1935-1946 (CB 425 .P79)

Trends in Public Opinion: A Compendium of Survey Data (Ref HN 90 .P8 N53 1989)

What’s Wrong: A Survey of American Satisfaction and Complaint (HN 59.2 .L33 1998)

Survey Questions and Responses

Polls, surveys, and results are usually available both from the original organization and also from aggregators / distributors. Many, but not all, surveys and results require a subscription or an institutional affiliation (i.e. JMU). Distributors may not always include full info, such as question order, or methodology. Results formats vary from easy-to-read HTML, to Excel, to SPSS datasets.

Sources about Polls & Surveys

Dictionary of Polling (Ref HM 261 .Y684 1992)

Polling and Survey Research Methods, 1935-1979: An Annotated Bibliography (Ref HM 261 .W33 1996)

Searching in LEO
Many additional items are in the library on specific aspects of polling and surveying. Some relevant subject headings in LEO include:

Attitude Psychology

Consumers attitudes

Election forecasting

Interviewing

Market surveys

Public opinion

Public opinion polls

Questionnaires

Sampling Statistics

Scaling social sciences

Social surveys

Surveys

Testing

Voting research

Periodicals
Our periodicals – print and online – are listed in Periodical Locator. Some of the ones of interest for either survey results or the study of surveys are listed below.

American Demographics

American Journal of Evaluation

Gallup Poll Tuesday Briefing

Harris Poll

ICPSR Bulletin

International Journal of Public Opinion Research

Journal of Economic & Social Measurement

Public Opinion Quarterly

Public Perspective

Periodical Indexes and Abstracts

PAIS International (ProQuest)

Indexes publications on all subjects that relate to contemporary public issues. Includes PAIS Archive.

Coverage: 1915 - present

Sociological Abstracts (ProQuest)

Useful for finding articles about methodological problems with survey research in your area. For example, (race or racial or ethnic*) AND (methodological problem* or research design)

Coverage: 1952 - present