The Logic of the Survey Experiment Reexamined

Scholars of political behavior increasingly embed experimental designs in opinion surveys by randomly assigning respondents alternative versions of questionnaire items. Such experiments have major advantages: they are simple to implement and they dodge some of the difficulties of making inferences f...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Political analysis Vol. 15; no. 1; pp. 1 - 20
Main Authors:	Gaines, Brian J., Kuklinski, James H., Quirk, Paul J.
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	New York, US Cambridge University Press 01-01-2007 Oxford University Press
Subjects:	Affirmative action City squares Control groups Cross sectional studies Experiments Inference Opinion polls Political attitudes Political Behavior Political Science Pretreatment Public opinion Public opinion surveys Questionnaires Research Design Respondents Stereotypes Surveys
Online Access:	Get full text
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Summary:	Scholars of political behavior increasingly embed experimental designs in opinion surveys by randomly assigning respondents alternative versions of questionnaire items. Such experiments have major advantages: they are simple to implement and they dodge some of the difficulties of making inferences from conventional survey data. But survey experiments are no panacea. We identify problems of inference associated with typical uses of survey experiments in political science and highlight a range of difficulties, some of which have straightforward solutions within the survey-experimental approach and some of which can be dealt with only by exercising greater caution in interpreting findings and bringing to bear alternative strategies of research.
Bibliography:	ark:/67375/HXZ-1DVBN0RL-L Authors' note: This paper was originally presented at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, April 2004. The commentators on that panel—Darren Davis, Donald Green, and Diana Mutz—made invaluable comments. We received helpful suggestions during presentations at Columbia University, Purdue University, and Northwestern University. We thank Thomas Rudolph for reading and commenting on an earlier version of the paper and Jamie Druckman for his encouragement from beginning to end. Psychologist Norbert Schwarz, one of the leaders of the survey experiment movement, offered invaluable insights. Robert Erikson and three anonymous reviewers gave useful advice on how to revise the original paper. Our greatest debt is to Paul Sniderman, who, more than any other single individual in political science, brought survey experiments into the mainstream. He will not agree with every argument presented here, but he has supported this project from its infancy. istex:2CF839C5A0EE17B1A25B01A671C25AC5107635D0 ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23
ISSN:	1047-1987 1476-4989
DOI:	10.1093/pan/mpl008