Survey Associate, Methodology

The Pew Charitable Trusts • Washington, DC

1d • $82,000 • Hybrid

About The Position

Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research in the areas of U.S. politics and policy views; news and information; internet and technology; science and society; religion and public life; global attitudes; race and ethnicity; and U.S. social and demographic trends. Pew Research does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts. Pew Research Center’s work is carried out by a staff of 180. The Center’s U.S. survey methods team manages our American Trends Panel (ATP), a multi-mode, probability-based survey panel that is its primary source of survey data for U.S. public opinion research, as well as provide guidance for all of the Center’s domestic public opinion research. The Survey Associate reports to the Associate Director for U.S. Survey Methods and works closely with the Principal Methodologist on sampling, weighting and other programming-intensive duties. The Survey Associate performs a range of duties to support the evolving needs of the Center’s survey methods team. These duties include, but are not limited to, data management, data wrangling, sampling, weighting, quality checking, data and questionnaire archiving, and supporting the ATP Panel Manager as needed during survey preparation and fielding. Furthermore, the Survey Associate will contribute to research and experimentation in the field of survey methodology, such as survey nonresponse, question wording effects, and nonprobability surveys.

Requirements

• Strong proficiency programming in the R statistical programming language is required. (Beginner level R users would not be a fit for this role). Some familiarity with SPSS is also a plus.
• 3-5 years research experience, including at least one year of professional experience with survey data collection, sampling, and constructing survey weights required
• B.A. degree in survey methodology, statistics or quantitative social science field is required, Master’s degree preferred
• Established background in survey methods and statistical analysis
• Ability to work well in a team setting
• Interest in public opinion and polling required
• A “numbers person” with strong quantitative and statistical skills
• Detail oriented with exacting standards to maintain accuracy and impartiality in all work products
• Problem solving skills, such as being able to properly diagnose and debug unexpected results or errors, is strongly preferred.
• Strong verbal and written communications skills
• Interest in expanding skills to cover new analytical tools and methods
• Ability to balance numerous tasks simultaneously and meet tight deadlines

Nice To Haves

• Familiarity with more advanced operations in R, such as wrangling data with the tidyverse or equivalent frameworks, writing custom functions, and writing reproducible code, is preferred.
• Familiarity with accessing and working with national public datasets and statistical databases preferred

Responsibilities

• Creating and checking survey weights in R
• Analysis of weighted survey data in R
• Managing survey data in R (especially cleaning, merging and recoding variables)
• Assist with the operation of the American Trends Panel including sampling, weighting, quality checking online survey programming, and production support
• Conduct ad hoc analyses for research and methods teams with oversight from the Principal Methodologist or Associate Director.
• Writing methodology sections for reports and maintaining methodology-related materials on the website
• Maintaining survey question archive
• Maintaining familiarity with the latest developments in survey methodology

Benefits

• Affordable, comprehensive health care that includes medical, dental (including adult orthodontia) and vision benefits.
• Generous paid annual leave plan, including a winter break between Dec. 25 and Jan. 1
• Employer-paid disability, life insurance and paid family leave plans
• Up to a 12% employer 401(k) contribution, with vesting at the end of the first year.
• A 37.5-hour workweek.
• Health savings or flexible spending account options with employer funding component.
• Flexibility to telework a portion of each week, with an additional four telework “flex weeks” each year for most staff.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level