AAPOR 80th Annual Conference Call for Abstracts

80th Annual AAPOR Conference

Reshaping Democracy’s Oracle: Transforming Polls, Surveys, and the Measurement of Public Opinion in the Age of AI

May 14 – 16, 2025

Call for Papers, Methodological Briefs, Posters, Panels, Roundtables, and Idea Groups

Submission Deadline: Friday, November 15, 2024 at 11:59 p.m. ET

The American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) is thrilled to announce that its 80th Annual Conference will be held at Union Station, St. Louis, May 14 through Friday, May 16, 2025. Don’t miss this opportunity to participate in the premier forum for the exchange of advances in public opinion and survey research.

Perched over a chasm, the Oracle of Delphi served as the ancient world’s source for divine wisdom and predictions about the future. Today, research insights from political polls and surveys are our modern-day public opinion oracles, providing valuable insights into people’s intentions, attitudes, and beliefs. Does our public trust the data we systematically divine? Can Pythia-the-AI bring us closer to Apollo?

The 2025 AAPOR Conference, “Reshaping Democracy’s Oracle,” will discuss the promises and perils that artificial intelligence (AI) and our information technology landscape have in changing political polling and survey research. Central to this theme is the role of new technologies in understanding voter behavior and an exploration of political polls given 2024 election outcomes around the world. Through short courses and the conference program, we will also examine the use of large language models, natural language processing, and machine learning algorithms to enhance and disrupt the ways we measure public opinion. Additionally, we will discuss ethical considerations, biases, and the importance of standards and transparency in an age of increasingly AI-driven insights and a potential “general purpose technology” (GPT) paradigm-shift.

For the conference, we encourage members and non-members to submit papers on a range of topics. We will have tracks on 2024 polling and elections as well as how AI is shaping surveys and public opinion research. (Some space will be saved for U.S. election-related papers that cannot make the regular submission deadline.) The 2025 conference is also the first since 2019 that the World Association for Public Opinion Research (WAPOR) will be located in the same city–and the same hotel–as AAPOR, so we encourage papers interested in measuring the opinions of non-US, multinational, multicultural, and multiregional publics.

Like the Oracle of Delphi, survey practitioners and pollsters find themselves balanced on a crevasse; on the cusp of an AI revolution and firmly in the age of hyperconnectivity, technology changes how we create, communicate, and make sense of our lives. So, too, will it change how we gather, analyze, and interpret public opinion data. As AI continues to advance at an unprecedented pace, it is poised to reshape how the public reacts to surveys and polls as well as how we understand public sentiment, forecast election outcomes, and inform policy decisions. At the 2025 AAPOR Conference, It’s imperative that we come together to discuss where AAPOR can lead and educate as well as how we can advocate for standards and data quality in this new age.

If you do not already have an account on AAPOR.org, you must create one to begin a submission. You do not need to be a member of AAPOR to create an account. The link to create an account can be found here. When prompted to log in, please click ‘Set Up an Account’ and follow the prompts.

All abstracts should be submitted electronically by Friday, November 15, 2024, at 11:59 p.m. ET

Space on the program is limited. There will be some individual submissions that cannot be integrated into a session and will, unfortunately, not be accepted. Authors of individual papers have a greater chance of acceptance if they are also willing to be considered for a methodological brief or poster.

Inquiries: All questions should be sent to rgreen@aapor.org.

Presentation Tracks:

AI, ML, and Data Science Methods

Example topics: applications of machine learning methods or artificial intelligence in social science research.

Attitudes and Opinions (Att)

Example topics: substantive issues and attitudes studied using survey research or other methods; attitudes towards the coronavirus pandemic, human rights, racial justice, immigration, LGBTQ issues, health care, taxes, race relations, police, civil rights, climate change, and other attitudes around justice, diversity, inclusion, and equity.

Big Data and Administrative Records
Example topics: analysis of social media or search engine data; combining administrative data with survey data

Data Collection Methods, Modes, Field Operations, and Costs (DataColl)

Example topics: Evaluating recruitment or data collection protocols; transitions from interviewer administered to other modes; survey modes, survey costs; contact tracing methods

Elections, Polling, and Politics (Elec) 

Example topics: voting behavior among diverse communities; drivers of vote preference; election poll methods; polling accuracy; voter files; exit polling; presidential approval.

Media, News and Information Sources (Media)

Example topics: types of news, media and information sources; new media; discrediting legitimate news sources; correlates of media viewing and consumption behaviors; effects of media on attitudes and opinions.

Multicultural, Multilingual, and Multinational Research (3MC)

Example topics: substantive findings from 3MC surveys; methodological issues in 3MC surveys.

Probability and Nonprobability Samples, Frames, and Coverage Errors (Samples)

Example topics: sampling frames; sampling techniques; comparison of probability and nonprobability samples; administrative data coverage properties.

Qualitative Research (QualRes)

Example topics: methodological insights from or about qualitative research methods; in-depth interviewing methods; focus groups; qualitative content analyses; mixed methods data collection; qualitative research among diverse communities.

Questionnaire Design and Interviewing (QuesDes)

Example topics: questionnaire design or formatting; visual design; interviewer effects; cognitive interviewing; response times; question characteristics.

Response Rates and Nonresponse Error (Nonresp)

Example topics: Nonresponse rates; nonresponse error; nonresponse-related paradata; adaptive and responsive design; incentive experiments; differential response patterns among diverse communities.

Research in Practice (ResPrac)

Example topics: data visualization; data security; writing successful RFPs; survey management; increasing the talent pipeline for public opinion research among diverse communities; other practical issues regarding survey data collection.

Statistical Techniques and Estimation (Stats)

Example topics: weighting and estimation; imputation; small-area estimation; Bayesian modeling; multi-level regression and post-stratification; variance estimation; analysis of complex survey data

Please consider the following when submitting your abstract:

Scheduling Conflicts

To minimize scheduling conflicts, the abstract submission forms will ask you to list any known conflicts during the May 14 – 16 conference dates. While we will make every attempt to accommodate scheduling conflicts, please be advised that in some instances, it may not be possible to avoid them. Requests must be received prior to the submission deadline of November 15, 2024.

Audio‐Visual Equipment

All meeting rooms will have projectors, screens, and laptops. Large rooms will have microphones.  All presenters will be asked to submit their slides before the conference. Instructions for presenters are forthcoming.

Confirmation

Submitters will receive automatic email confirmation of their submission within 5 minutes. Submitters who do not receive this confirmation should log back on to the submission site to verify their submission was entered correctly. The submitter is the primary contact person and is responsible for notifying all other co-authors of acceptance, rejection, scheduling, and other information AAPOR provides.

Review Process

Each submission will be reviewed by at least two peer reviewers and a final reviewer who assists the Conference Chair and Associate Conference Chair with making final decisions about abstracts for the specific presentation track and session format. We expect to send acceptance notifications by mid-January 2025.

AAPOR Code of Ethics

All submissions that present original survey data must abide by the AAPOR Code of Professional Ethics and Practices by reporting, at a minimum, the information specified in Section III‐A of the AAPOR Code. Further, proposals should communicate work that authors expect to reach an acceptable completion stage before the conference (e.g., by the end of April 2025).