AIR Experts to Present at American Association for Public Opinion Research Annual Conference

Washington, D.C. - Survey and data analysis experts from the American Institutes for Research (AIR) will be featured in several presentations at the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) Annual Conference, being held May 16-19, 2018, in Denver, Colorado. AAPOR is the nation’s largest professional organization of public opinion and survey research professionals.

AIR experts will present on a variety of topics at the conference, including response rates, follow-up questionnaires, and the use of online surveys. Staff will also present at two poster sessions. AIR is a Silver Sponsor of the AAPOR annual conference and will have a booth (#315) in the exhibit hall.

In addition, an AIR team—including Sarah Kelley, Celeste Stone, Mark Masterton, Caitlin Deal, and Clyde Tucker—is one of five finalists in the first “AAPOR’s Got Talent” competition, which challenges experts to design a solution around a specific issue or challenge in the public opinion research field. Their entry, “Public Opinion in Space and Time: A Geospatial View of Public Attitudes Towards Surveys,” focuses on better understanding and improving people’s perceptions of surveys. Each finalist will present his or her entry at the conference and a panel of experts will determine the winner.

Below is a list of AAPOR sessions that include AIR presenters and/or authors.

Wednesday, May 16

1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. MDT

Session 4: Mail Surveys: The Effect of the Envelope and Everything In It on Survey Response

Location: Governor’s Square 10

• Does Size (or Type) Really Matter? The Impact of Envelope Size on Response Rates In a Large Scale National Survey
  AIR Presenters/Authors: Ashley Kaiser, Danielle Battle and Rebecca Medway
• Can Specific Households be Targeted for FedEx Reminders? Evidence From a National Survey
  AIR Presenters/Authors: Mahi Megra and Rebecca Medway
• The Shorter, The Better?
  AIR Presenters/Authors: Danielle Battle and Ashley Kaiser
   

Thursday, May 17

8:00 a.m. – 9:30 a.m. MDT

Session 4: Follow the $$: Personal Finance and the Economy

Location: Governor’s Square 10

• Economic Disillusionment? Attitudinal and Circumstantial Drivers of Perception of the Economy
  AIR Presenters/Authors: Sarah Kelley and Claire Kelley

1:45 p.m. – 3:15 p.m. MDT

Session 8: Does Your Smartphone Speak My Language? Exploring Natural Language Processing and Data Collection Using Smartphones and Tablets

Location: Governor’s Square 15

• Natural Language Processing for Social Scientists
  AIR Presenters/Authors: Claire Kelley and Sarah Kelley

Session 10: Who Says No? Non-response Issues in Election Polls

Location: Governor’s Square 17

AIR Moderator: Clyde Tucker

3:15 p.m. – 4:15 p.m. MDT

Poster Session #2

Location: Plaza Ballroom D

• Asking Households to Complete an Additional Survey Questionnaire: More Efficient or More Risky?
  AIR Presenters/Authors: Rebecca Medway, Carol Wan and Nicole Guarino
• Who Knows Best? A Look at Data Quality Among Parents and Non-parents in a Household Survey
  AIR Presenters/Authors: Danielle Battle, Ashley Kaiser and Chris Pugliese
   

Friday, May 18

8:00 a.m. – 9:30 a.m. MDT

Session 3: Raise the Flag to Retreat or Rejoice? Exploring the Utility of Appended Information to ABS

Location: Director’s Row I

AIR Moderator: Cameron McPhee

Session 11: AAPOR’s Got Talent

Location: Plaza Ballroom BCEF

• Public Opinion in Space and Time: A Geospatial View of Public Attitudes Towards Surveys
  AIR Presenters/Authors: Sarah Kelley, Celeste Stone, Mark Masterton, Caitlin Deal and Clyde Tucker

10:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. MDT

Session 2: Learning from the Madness: Digital-trace Data, Crowd-sourcing, and Natural Language Processing

Location: Director’s Row H

• Is the Media Liberal? Using Natural Language Processing to Identify Media Bias
  AIR Presenters/Authors: Sarah Kelley and Claire Kelley

Session 6: If I Adapt, Will You Respond?

Location: Governor’s Square 12

• Meeting/Achieving Your Targeted Response Rate: Using Adaptive Design in a National Survey of County Health Officials
  AIR Presenters/Authors: Anne Diffenderffer and Alexander Mendoza

12:45 p.m. – 1:45 p.m. MDT

Poster Session #3

Location: Plaza Exhibit Hall

• Do I Have a Choice? Comparing Parental Perceptions of School Choice with Actual School Choice in Selected School Districts
  AIR Presenters/Authors: Angelina KewalRamani and Anlan Zhang
• Does One Plus One Equal Two? Comparing Data on Parents’ Marital and Partner Status Over Time
  AIR Presenters/Authors: Anlan Zhang and Angelina Kewal-Ramani
• Compare Two Screener Listing Methods in an Online Household Survey
  AIR Presenters/Authors: Tzu-Jou Wan, Rachel Hanson and Danielle Battle
• When Automated Labelling Isn’t Enough
  AIR Presenters/Authors: Jen Durow and Christina Jones
   

Saturday, May 19

8:30 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. MDT

Session 3: Does Push Come to Shove? Assessing Push-to-Web

Location: Director’s Row I

• Do You “Vote” for Web or Paper? Leveraging Voting Data to Predict Response By Web In a Mixed-Mode (Web-Push) Survey
  AIR Presenters/Authors: Cameron McPhee and Rebecca Medway

Session 6: Populism in America: Bannon, Breitbart, and the Rust Belt

Location: Governor’s Square 12

• Using Social Media Data to Track Populist Concerns
  AIR Presenters/Authors: Claire Kelley and Sarah Kelley

10:15 a.m. – 11:45 a.m. MDT

Session 2: DCSP Do You Get Nothing After Addition? Exploring the Use of Appended and Ancillary Data for ABS Recruitment

Location: Director’s Row H

• To Re-Contact or Not to Re-Contact: Using Auxiliary Data to Model Address Eligibility in a Household Survey
  AIR Presenter/Author: Cameron McPhee

Session 4: Some Tricks to Increase Clicks: Exploring Methods for Web-survey Recruitment

Location: Governor’s Square 10

• Contact Methods That Require Prior Consent: Who Consents and What Effect Do Such Methods Have on Survey Quality?
  AIR Presenters/Authors: Caitlin Deal, Rebecca Medway and Trey Miller

About AIR
Established in 1946, with headquarters in Washington, D.C., the American Institutes for Research (AIR) is a nonpartisan, not-for-profit organization that conducts behavioral and social science research and delivers technical assistance both domestically and internationally in the areas of health, education, and workforce productivity. For more information, visit www.air.org.

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