Yamil Valez, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Columbia University
SoDa Symposium: Crowdsourced Adaptive Surveys
A Presentation with Q&A
presented on
Tuesday, May 6, 2025
12 pm – 1 pm (Online)
Abstract:
Public opinion surveys are vital for informing democratic decision-making, but responding to rapidly changing information environments and measuring beliefs within hard-to-reach communities can be challenging for traditional survey methods. This paper introduces a crowdsourced adaptive survey methodology (CSAS) that unites advances in natural language processing and adaptive algorithms to produce surveys that evolve with participant input. The CSAS method converts open-ended text provided by participants into survey items and applies a multi-armed bandit algorithm to determine which questions should be prioritized in the survey. The method’s adaptive nature allows new survey questions to be explored and imposes minimal costs in survey length. Applications in the domains of misinformation, issue salience, and local politics showcase CSAS’s ability to identify topics that might otherwise escape the notice of survey researchers. I conclude by highlighting CSAS’s potential to bridge conceptual gaps between researchers and participants in survey research.
Presenter:
Yamil R. Velez
Assistant Professor of Political Science
Columbia University
Bio:
Yamil Ricardo Velez is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Columbia University. His research focuses on how the quality of political information influences political engagement and representation, with a particular emphasis on the impact of misinformation. His most recent work explores the potential for generative artificial intelligence to enhance our understanding of public opinion through the use of adaptive surveys. His work has been published in top journals such as American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, British Journal of Political Science, and Political Analysis. At Columbia, Yamil teaches courses on Experimental Research, Political Psychology, and Racial and Ethnic Politics. Before joining Columbia, he held faculty positions at George Washington University and Wesleyan University. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Stony Brook University.
Moderator:
Frauke Kreuter
Professor
Joint Program in Survey Methodology
Co-Director, Social Data Science Center (SoDa)
University of Maryland
Chair of Statistics and Data Science in Social Sciences and Humanities
Ludwig-Maximilian, University of Munich
President, American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR)
