National Surveys on Energy and Environment [United States]

Summary:  View help for Summary The Spring 2015 NSEE was the 14th wave in the NSEE survey program. The survey included longitudinal questions about belief in climate change, plus additional content related to state renewable portfolio standards, state cap-and-trade programs, and more. 

The results are based on a telephone survey of 751 adult (age 18 or older) residents of the United States between April 8 and April 30, 2015. Respondents were interviewed in English on both landlines (334) and cell phones (417) by the staff of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion (MCIPO) in Allentown, Pennsylvania on the Institute’s Computer Aided Telephone Interviewing (CATI) system. Of the 417 cell phone respondents, 293 had no landlines in their household. Both the landline and cell phone samples were provided by the Marketing Systems Group (MSG), Horsham, Pennsylvania. Both landline and cell phones were chosen randomly from sampling frames of United States landline and cell numbers provided by MSG.With a randomly selected sample of 751 respondents the margin of error for the surveys is ±3.6% at a 95% level of confidence. Margins of error for questions with smaller sample sizes will be larger. In addition to sampling error, one should consider that question wording and other fielding issues can introduce error or bias into survey results. The sample data has been weighted by age, race, educational attainment, income, and gender to reflect 2013 population parameters for these factors provided by the United States Census Bureau. The calculation of sampling error takes into account design effects due to the weighting identified above. In order to reach a representative sample of adult Americans both landlines and cell phones are called up to 10 times. The response rate for this survey as calculated using the American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) RR3 formula is 11%.

The instrument was designed by Christopher Borick of Muhlenberg College, Barry Rabe of the University of Michigan, and Erick Lachapelle of the University of Montreal. For more detailed information on the methods employed please contact the MCIPO at 484-664-3444 or email Dr. Borick at cborick@muhlenberg.edu.

Funding for the NSEE surveys has been provided by general revenues of the University of Michigan Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy, and the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion. The authors did not accept any stipend or supplemental income in the completion of the survey or the reports from this survey.

Subject Terms:  View help for Subject Terms alternative energy; energy policy; renewable energy; climate change; global warming

Time Period(s):  View help for Time Period(s) 4/8/2015 – 4/30/2015