Emily Thorson

Call for Proposals: Data Collection for Replication+Novel Political Science Survey Experiments Alexander Coppock and Mary McGrath January 27, 2026 We invite proposals for a survey experiment replication+novel design competition. Se- lected replication+novel design survey experiments will be conducted on large samples of American respondents, quota sampled to match U.S. Census margins and filtered for quality and attention by the survey sample provider Rep Data (repdata.com). Each proposal consists of two parts: (1) a replication study of an existing, previously published survey experiment, and (2) a novel experimental design on a topic of the authors’ choosing. The replication studies and reanalyses of the existing studies will be combined into a meta-paper to be co-authored by all authors of accepted proposals along with the princi- pal investigators (Coppock and McGrath). As a condition for acceptance, authors commit to sharing the data and producing a write-up of the findings from their novel design for submission to a scholarly journal, and public posting of a working paper pre-publication.

🎺 Call for proposals 🎺

1️⃣ replicate an existing experiment
2️⃣ run a novel experiment

on repdata.com

3️⃣ coauthor with Mary McGrath and me to meta-analyze the replications and existing studies
4️⃣ publish your study

details: alexandercoppock.com/replication_...
applications open Feb 1

please repost!

Thanks

Can anyone point me to a credible estimate of how much ICE operations are costing taxpayers per day? Either in general or Minneapolis-specific.

The 7yo and 9yo are totally enthralled by William Steig's "CDB!" A true classic.

Awesome! Just requested a review copy for my Political Persuasion class.

This is wonderful. I was on leave this semester but this makes me excited about coming back. I also think AI has forced us profs to become more creative and thoughtful about our assignments and our teaching, which is a good thing.

And I'm pretty sure your office is right by a Nordstrom Rack, just saying...

I also recently needed a new wallet and got so overwhelmed by the online options that I went to Marshalls and just bought the most acceptable of the four options they had available. Satisficing!

Review says "Good toy. It pleased the child."

Love a concise Amazon review.

Just logged onto this site for the first time in a couple of weeks and THANK YOU! So glad it is resonating.

I never buy luxury brands inconsistent with the characteristics with which I describe myself (seven point scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree)

Guys today is a red-letter day for bad survey questions. Look at this lovely double negative that just rolled in!

Good question! (1) requires too much cognitive work to parse what it's asking for, (2) too much abstract thinking, (3) poorly differentiated response options (e.g. good chance vs strong chance)

The actual survey had probably 20 versions of this question. I almost never satisfice on surveys but I lacked the cognitive focus to interpret each one. Sorry, researchers.

Survey question reading "When deciding whether to pursue a new long-term goal, what is the chance you will overestimate how challenging it will be to achieve?" Answer options: No chance, very slight chance, slight chance, moderate chance, good chance, strong chance, certain

for everyone teaching survey design this fall, great news: a new terrible question example just dropped! (this is from a real survey I just took) 😱

same. just gonna go ahead and put it all on my FSA card.

Or, even worse, accurate.

Survey question asking which of the following best describes your current job title or role, options like "Vice President," "General Manager," and "Individual Contributor"

From a Washington Post reader survey I just took. What a bizarre list of job titles. Also I love the idea that it's critically important to distinguish between the Presidents and Vice Presidents among their readership. TOTALLY different news preferences.

this made me laugh out loud in the middle of a meeting

I'm excited for what I hope will be an increase in LLM-assisted descriptive content analysis...especially looking forward to when someone (who is not me) looks at the topics of news coverage across multiple outlets and time periods.

great call — more experiments and within-subject panels / less emphasis on what the national topline happens to be today while worrying about whether it got the sample right feels like a worthwhile trade for the public polling industry

Agreed. I think they are often BETTER when they hand-write than when they type because they don't try to fancy it up and instead write more like they speak.

I switched to blue books a few years ago. It's fine! Student handwriting is mostly readable, the score distributions are similar, they have not lost the ability to write or concentrate or form coherent sentences. Students who need accommodations take at at our CDR, easy-peasy.

I think figuring out concrete strategies to deal with it is the opposite of letting down one's guard. It's acknowledging that it's a game changer and figuring out how to adapt.

I'm pretty over the doomsaying/complaining about AI and student learning and interested in moving on to the "solutions" part. In-class writing (by hand!) exercises, non-generic paper topics, etc. We can adapt! It might even be fun!

[starts going through all of Drew's coauthors so I can figure out who to high-five at the next APSA]

There is NOTHING on the front page of Fox News about the stock market crash. Nothing at all.

(screenshot taken from the linked paper by @vinarceneaux.bsky.social @m-b-petersen.bsky.social and Mathias Osmundsen)

Pretty horrifying how well the "need for chaos" survey battery describes the Trump/Musk administration's current approach to governing. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Also I love that you made a PDF blog.

I totally missed this (this is what happens when you log onto Bluesky only once every six weeks). And yes, I was assuming variation to measure causal effects -- I guess I shouldn't have said "descriptive" when what I meant was "causal inference that is not aimed only at 'proving' a 'theory'"