ANES 1997 Pilot Study

The 1997 Pilot Study is part of the National Election Studies (NES) effort to develop new instrumentation. Previous pilot studies were conducted in 1979, 1983, 1985, 1987, 1989, 1991, 1993, and 1995. As in earlier pilot studies (except for 1979), the 1997 study respondents were a subset of the previous year's traditional time-series respondents. This study is a one-wave reinterview of a randomly-selected subset of respondents with telephones from the fresh cross-section portion of the AMERICAN NATIONAL ELECTION STUDY, 1996: POST-ELECTION SURVEY (ICPSR 6896). The 1997 Pilot Study was conducted between September 5 and October 1, 1997. Specific topic areas in the study include: (1) a battery designed to improve NES instrumentation on nonelectoral political participation and mobilization, (2) testing of NES instrumentation on group closeness, group difference, and group conflict as a basis of current mass politics, and group threat as a basis of group-based politics, (3) evaluations of the president, Congress, and the Supreme Court using a new battery of items, and (4) the role of religion in citizens' political thinking. The use of Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) enabled a number of experimental treatments within the survey instrumentation, including random assignment, early-late placement, and presentation order. In addition, rosters of items, such as the thermometer, were randomized in administration to minimize order effects.