COVID-19 questions selected for Round 10

Following an open call for proposals, the European Social Survey (ESS) has now selected an additional 10 questions of relevance to Coronavirus that will be fielded in Round 10 (2020/21).

Two proposals of up to five questions were chosen to be included in the latest round of our survey, due to be fielded across Europe from September 2020.

Government authority and legitimacy in the age of a pandemic will focus on attitudes towards government responses to the pandemic.

The questions were proposed Marc Helbling (University of Bamberg, WZB Berlin Social Science Center), Rahsaan Maxwell (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) and Richard Traunmüller (University of Mannheim).

The second module selected – COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs and government rule compliance – was submitted by Kostas Gemenis (Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies) and Levente Littvay (Central European University, European University Institute).

The ESS had already decided to include 10 questions related to the Coronavirus pandemic in Round 10, meaning that 20 questions on the topic will now feature.

There was an impressive response to the open call for proposals, with almost 30 scientific teams submitting questions to be included in the latest round of our survey.

Our Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) – who selected the proposals – were particularly impressed with the quality of applications, especially considering the call was open for less than four weeks.

In every round of our survey, the SAB decide which two rotating modules – of around 30 questions each – are selected to be fielded alongside the core questionnaire.

Director of the ESS, Professor Rory Fitzgerald, said: “We were delighted with the high levels of interest from the scientific community in our special fast call for COVID-19 modules.

“These will be included in ESS Round 10. The two successful applications will shed light on how the response to COVID-19 is being assessed by people across Europe.”

The proposed questions are provisional at this stage, and may be refined before the Round 10 questionnaire is fielded.