Friedman Foundation Earns AAPOR’s Transparency Initiative Membership
The Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice team is proud to announce that our foundation became a charter member of the American Association for Public Opinion Research’s (AAPOR) Transparency Initiative (TI) on September 17, 2015.
The purpose of the TI is to encourage voluntary participation for organizations and survey researchers to regularly disclose their methods for publicly released surveys. The TI specifically applies to survey-based qualitative research publications produced by our resident team or our authors.
In the spring of this year, we applied to become a charter member of the Transparency Initiative. To earn that membership, the Friedman Foundation team worked with the TI coordinating committee to bring our current methods reporting for voter/general population polling and statewide surveys of private schools in line with the AAPOR Transparency Initiative standards.
Charter membership in the TI reflects our assurance of transparency and clarity. To maintain our membership, we meticulously describe the details of our research methods. We have always been open about our research methods, but the AAPOR TI’s endorsement affirms our commitment to the highest levels of research transparency.
TI membership is important to us for two major reasons.
First, providing straightforward information about our survey research methods improves quality assurance and builds trust with our readers. Internal and external review processes are essential for quality control in our field, and we conduct both types for all of our research publications. TI membership bolsters the external review of our surveys’ methodology reporting by giving us direct access to some of the nation’s premier survey methodologists in the TI coordinating committee.
Second, the TI will be a useful resource for keeping up with the evolving landscape of survey research methods. We do not have an in-house methodologist, but the AAPOR Transparency Initiative provides a channel to a number of the country’s leading survey researchers and methodologists who can review materials and provide guidance and continued education to Friedman Foundation staff.
We are excited to become a TI member, and, as always, we welcome any questions or feedback our readers might have about our research.
For further information on AAPOR’s Transparency Initiative, please visit AAPOR’s website.
For a full list of current TI members, click here.
Recent examples of our surveys include Latino Perspectives on K–12 Education & School Choice, Exploring Nevada’s Private Education Sector, and the 2015 Schooling in America Survey.
