VCU -- Commonwealth Poll -- www.CommonwealthPoll.vcu.edu

A survey of Virginians conducted by the VCU Center for Public Policy

METHOD OF THE COMMONWEALTH POLL

      The Commonwealth Poll is an omnibus public opinion survey of Virginia residents. Each survey covers a variety of topics. The survey is conducted by telephone with a randomly-selected sample of adult Virginians.

     Interviewing for The Commonwealth Poll is conducted by telephone by a professional research organization. The interviewing is conducted by a staff of professionally trained, paid interviewers using computer-assisted telephone interviewing software.

     The sample of telephone numbers is designed so that all residential telephones, including new and unlisted numbers, have a known chance of inclusion.

     Data are weighted to adjust for unequal probabilities of selection due to multiple adults living in the household. In addition, the data are weighted on sex, race, age, and region of residence to reflect the demographic composition of the Virginia adult population. As a general rule, percentages reported in the text and tables of all releases are weighted, while the number of cases shown for various subgroups is the actual number of respondents.

     The above provides a general description of the current method used in conducting The Commonwealth Poll. Some changes have been made to the weighting procedures over the years. In addition, some studies have modified this design for study-specific needs. Please consult the description accompanying each survey for the number of respondents, the margin of error, and other study-specific details.

     Further information is available on request from the Director of the Commonwealth Poll,
              Dr. Carolyn Funk, at (804) 827-1212 or clfunk@vcu.edu

Commonwealth Poll / Center for Public Policy / Survey and Evaluation Research Laboratory (SERL)

Virginia Commonwealth University