Today’s students are preparing to enter a world in which data literacy – the ability to find, analyze, interpret, and describe data – is absolutely essential for academic and career success. The Roper Center’s archive of public opinion data offers educators the opportunity to integrate data into curriculum in multiple ways by offering understandable, relevant quantitative data on a broad range of topics in history, health, culture, government, and media studies. To support educators at the graduate, undergraduate, and high school level in their work, the Roper Center offers the following materials to facilitate the use of polling data in the classroom. For an overview of polling concepts, methods and analysis, please see Polling Fundamentals and Analyzing Polls.
Classroom Materials
Lesson Plans
Introductory-level lesson plans appropriate to an advanced high school or introductory college curriculum.
* U.S. History – Public Support for WWII (pdf)
* U.S. History – The Public and Desegregation (pdf)
* Civics – Using Polls to Develop a Political Strategy (pdf)
* Mathematics – Working with Percentages (pdf)
Assignments
This section provides educators with sample teaching assignments helpful in the classroom for getting students acquainted with polling data. Assignments utilize several Roper Center resources to support learning of fundamental polling principles.
* Polling Basics Assignment (pdf)
* Sample Assignment Using the Roper Center’s website (pdf)
* Topical Assignments (pdf)
Workshops
These hands-on group exercises can be used to familiarize anyone new to polling – students, librarians, researchers from other fields, educators – with the basics of understanding public opinion polls and navigating the Roper Center archives.
* Abortion Workshop Exercise (pdf)
* Gay Rights Workshop Exercise (pdf)
* Israel Workshop Exercise (pdf)
* Smoking Workshop Exercise (pdf)
* War and Politics I Workshop Exercise (pdf)
* War and Politics II Workshop Exercise (pdf)
Syllabi in Public Opinion
* Public Opinion, Polling, and Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School (pdf)
* Public Opinion Seminar, University of Texas at Arlington (pdf)
* Public Opinion and Polling in American Democracy, Castleton College (pdf)
* Public Opinion in American Politics, George Washington University (pdf)
* An Introduction to the Principals and Methods of Survey Research, University of Connecticut (pdf)
SPSS Exercises
Undergraduate Research Sample
Undergraduates working with Roper Center materials have conducted and presented original research. See student posters on on public opinion in the following areas:
* Gun control
* Constitutional amendments,
* Human rights
* Political engagement of high-religiosity millennials
Dataset downloads
2006 Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey
The 2006 Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey is comprised of a national adult sample of 2,741 respondents and twenty-two communities sample (11 of which were from the 2000 Social Capital Benchmark Survey) totaling 9,359 community respondents. The overall sample size is 12,100. Field Period The survey was conducted during two waves.
Faith Matters Survey 2006
The Faith Matters Survey was conducted on behalf of Harvard University by International Communications Research in the summer of 2006. The survey was generously funded by the John Templeton Foundation.