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Developing Standards for Post-Hoc Weighting in Population-Based Survey Experiments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 October 2017

Annie Franco ,
Neil Malhotra ,
Gabor Simonovits  and
L. J. Zigerell
Annie Franco
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA, e-mail: annniefranco@gmail.com
Neil Malhotra
Affiliation:
Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA, e-mail: neilm@stanford.edu
Gabor Simonovits
Affiliation:
Department of Politics, New York University, New York, NY, USA, e-mail: simonovits@nyu.edu
L. J. Zigerell
Affiliation:
Department of Politics and Government, Illinois State University, Normal, IL, USA, e-mail: ljzigerell@ilstu.edu
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Abstract

Weighting techniques are employed to generalize results from survey experiments to populations of theoretical and substantive interest. Although weighting is often viewed as a second-order methodological issue, these adjustment methods invoke untestable assumptions about the nature of sample selection and potential heterogeneity in the treatment effect. Therefore, although weighting is a useful technique in estimating population quantities, it can introduce bias and also be used as a researcher degree of freedom. We review survey experiments published in three major journals from 2000–2015 and find that there are no standard operating procedures for weighting survey experiments. We argue that all survey experiments should report the sample average treatment effect (SATE). Researchers seeking to generalize to a broader population can weight to estimate the population average treatment effect (PATE), but should discuss the construction and application of weights in a detailed and transparent manner given the possibility that weighting can introduce bias.

Keywords

Survey experimentweightingexternal validityrepresentativenesstransparencySATEPATE
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Experimental Political Science , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , Summer 2017 , pp. 161 - 172
Copyright
Copyright © The Experimental Research Section of the American Political Science Association 2017 

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