FAQ’s for CSU Field Faculty Fellowship

FAQ’s for CSU Faculty Fellowship to Place Policy Research Questions on The Field Poll

  • Information about The Field Poll is available on the Field Research Corporation (FRC) website.
  • What is the population?  Since 2006 the population under study of nearly all Field Polls includes registered voters within the state of California.

  • What languages are the interviews conducted in?  All statewide Field Polls since the early 1990s have been conducted in both English and Spanish.  Since 2010 The Field Poll has also, on occasion, conducted its surveys in Chinese (both Mandarin and Cantonese dialects), Korean, Vietnamese and Tagalog.  However, for the purposes of the Faculty Fellowship program, fellows should assume that the Field Poll survey on which they will be including questions will be administered in English and Spanish only.

  • Where can I find Field Poll reports?  All Field Poll reports and press release issued since 1996 are available on the Field website.

  • Can I look at previous Field Polls?   CSU’s annual contract agreement with Field provides all CSU campuses with direct online access to the data files and codebooks of all Field Poll surveys archived at UCDATA at the University of California Berkeley website.  The UCDATA archive houses the data files of virtually all statewide surveys conducted by The Field Poll since May 1956, over 200 different survey data files in all.  Accessing these files requires you to be affiliated with either the University of California or a campus in the California State University system that subscribes to these social science data bases.  There are separate links for UC and CSU affiliates as well as for non-UC and CSU individuals.  UC and CSU affiliates can search, download, and analyze the data (with Survey Documentation and Analysis – SDA – an online statistical program).  Non-UC and CSU individuals have more limited access to more recently conducted Field Polls, and can only search, download, and analyze Field Poll data files that are more than two years old.

  • Can I look at examples of questions on the Field Poll?  Most of the recently archived Field Poll data files have codebooks and questionnaires that will provide the exact wording and sequencing of the survey questions asked.

  • How are questions counted?  Faculty Fellows may place a maximum of 12 closed-ended questions onto one Field Poll survey.  Field counts each response from the respondent as a separate question. For example, if you have five parts to a question that ask the respondent whether they agree or disagree with five different statements, each of these is counted as a separate question.

  • When will my questions appear on a Field Poll?  Field staff will work with the selected faculty fellow to arrange a mutually convenient time for including the questions on one of The Field Poll’s regularly scheduled statewide surveys.  Because Field has the final decision on when to run your questions, fellows should not assume that their questions will appear on the next Field Poll.

Last updated: June 3, 2016.