Sofi Sinozich and Patrick Moynihan- Rethinking Methods in the Global Attitudes Project: Explorations in Australia and Sweden. 02.18.2026

Rethinking Methods in the Global Attitudes Project: Explorations in Australia and Sweden

Sofi Sinozich and Patrick Moynihan

In addition to regularly surveying the American public, Pew Research Center fields cross-national public opinion surveys in more than 20 countries annually as part of its Global Attitudes Project (GAP). The Center’s International Methods team focuses on designing, implementing, monitoring, and improving these surveys throughout the year. In this talk, we present two research projects from 2025 in Australia and Sweden.

Many surveys around the world, across modes and methods, have tended to show a slight left-leaning political bias. Weighting to past vote or party affiliation is a common solution, but these corrections alone may create excessive variance inflation. We faced this problem in our surveys fielded on the mixed-mode Life in Australia probability panel, administered by the Australian National University’s Social Research Centre. To combat this bias, we tested a “voting-adjusted” sampling approach recommended by our partners at SRC, in parallel with our previous standard stratified sampling design. Taking advantage of panel information and recent Australian elections, the new method incorporates self-reported 2022 vote into individual weights which are used as a measure of size for PPS sampling. After reviewing the technical details behind this approach, we’ll discuss our findings on its impact on variance and substantive estimates compared to the standard design.

Push-to-web (P2W) designs are gaining traction in Europe as an alternative to costly – and methodologically challenged – interviewer-administered approaches. For instance, the European Social Survey announced that by 2027 online and paper self-administered surveys will be their primary means of data collection replacing their traditional face-to-face approach. To better understand this mode and its potential for future waves of GAP, we recently piloted an ABS-style, sequential P2W survey in Sweden to compare with our traditional dual-frame phone design (DFRDD). Our presentation will compare P2W and DFRDD sample outcomes in terms of data quality (such as response rates, response differentiation, survey engagement, and open-ended answer quality), representativeness (versus demographic parameters for gender, education, age and geography) and attitudinal estimates (considering the viability of long-term data trends if mode transitioned in Sweden). The P2W survey included an unconditional incentive experiment as well as a paper questionnaire mailing, allowing us to present findings regarding the value of these design elements. This section of the talk concludes with key takeaways and recommendations for future mode-transition trials. 

Sofi Sinozich is a research methodologist in international methods at Pew Research Center. She advises on complex sample design, survey implementation, and data quality assessment for international projects across the Center. Prior to joining the Center, she was a senior research analyst at Langer Research Associates, where she managed and contributed to a wide variety of survey projects, including serving as lead analyst on the ABC News/Washington Post poll. She holds a master's degree in survey methodology from JPSM and is a member of the WAPOR Professional Standards committee.

Patrick Moynihan is the associate director of international methods at Pew Research Center. Prior to joining the Center, Patrick was the survey methodologist in the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Opinion Research (INR/OPN), assistant director of the Program on Survey Research at Harvard University, and senior polling analyst at ABC News. He is a past president of the New England Chapter of the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR), served on multiple national AAPOR committees, and is currently a member of the Committee on Professional Standards for the World Association for Public Opinion Research. Moynihan received his doctorate in sociology from SUNY Stony Brook.