Browse 114 concepts used in the study of religion, review how survey researchers measured them in the past, and quickly compare the results of more than 7,600 survey questions.
The archive is a collection of surveys, polls, and other data submitted by the foremost scholars and research centers in the world. Review and analyze data online, or download free of charge.
Examine the religious composition, religious freedoms, demographics, constitutional clauses, survey findings and multiple social and political measures for 250 nations.
View maps of the United States and individual states for hundreds of variables, including congregational membership, census data, crime statistics and many others.
Generate congregational membership reports for any county, state and urban area in the United States using data collected by the Religious Congregations & Membership Study.
The profiles chart schisms and mergers, document membership trends, offer basic descriptions, and link to additional resources for more than 400 past and present American religious groups.
Browse dozens of topics from a major national survey of religious congregations. See how the responses vary by the size, religious family and region of the congregation.
Browse dozens of topics covered by major national surveys. See how the responses vary by demographic categories and, when available, how they change over time.
View maps of the United States and individual states for hundreds of variables, including congregational membership, census data, crime statistics and many others.
TESS conducts general population experiments on behalf of investigators throughout the social sciences. General population experiments allow investigators to assign representative subject populations to experimental conditions of their choosing. Faculty and graduate students from the social sciences and related fields (such as law and public health) propose experiments. A comprehensive, on-line submission and peer review process screens proposals for the importance of their contribution to science and society.
The following study executes a survey experiment involving four treatment vignettes and one control vignette and 17 survey questions administered to 1,135 respondents. Respondents are randomly assigned to one of the five treatments which depict a short AP newswire blurb describing an arrest of two terrorist suspects in suburban Chicago. The treatments are identical to one another except they vary the names of the suspects (stereotypical Arabic/Muslim vs. Anglo-American) and the names of the terrorist movement the suspects are alleged to be members of (radical Islamists vs. right-wing American extremist). The control vignette omits any identification of the suspect names or groups. All respondents are then asked 13 questions rating their support for / approval of controversial interrogation and detention practices (10 interrogation practices, including the use of physical abuse of suspects, and three detention practices, including indefinite detention of suspects) that have been used by U.S. counterterrorism officials since the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Online surveys with random selection into one of five possible experimental conditions.
Sampling Procedures
TESS provides investigators an opportunity to run Internet-based experiments on a random, probability-based sample of the population. To achieve a representative sample, we contract with GfK (formerly Knowledge Networks), which conducts surveys using its KnowledgePanel. KnowledgePanel is a nationally representative, probability-based web panel based on dual-frame sampling that combines traditional random-digit-dialing telephone surveying techniques with an address-based technique that allows the sample to be representative of cell-phone-only households as well as those with land-lines. A summary of the KnowledgePanel survey design used for the TESS projects can be accessed here. Additional data and study materials can be downloaded here.
