Building Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel

Most probability-based political and social surveys of the general public in the United States continue to be conducted by telephone. In most of these surveys, respondents are interviewed only once. This model of conducting surveys is facing serious challenges as response rates drop, costs increase and newer alternative methods present appealing alternatives.

One alternative that is hardly new, but is attracting renewed attention, is the panel survey. Panel surveys involve repeated interviews with the same pool of respondents over time. Panels have been around for decades, and high-quality, probability-based panels...