The 1998-1999 Multi-Investigator Study was a national random-digit telephone survey funded by the National Science Foundation. This was the second such study (the first being the 1994 Multi-Investigator Study) carried out by the Survey Research Center of the University of California, Berkeley. As in the 1994 study, the survey population was defined as all English-speaking adults 18 years of age or older, residing in households with telephones, within the 48 contiguous states. The number of completed interviews was 1,067. The response rate was 55.8 percent.
This study involved the active participation of thirteen teams of investigators and was focused on public opinion related to a wide variety of social and political issues. The study was designed to provide information not only on how people feel about the issues but also how they come to form opinions about the issues. Many randomized experiments were included in the survey in order to provide data that could help answer such questions.