Methodological audit of monitoring social research[Методический Аудит Мониторинговых Социальных Исследований]

The preprint was written based on the results of research work carried out by the Social Research Methodology Laboratory of the Institute for Social Analysis and Forecasting, RANEPA under the President of the Russian Federation in 2019. The paper discusses the theoretical foundations for a methodological audit, the conduct of which is seen by the authors as the central, fundamental task of methodological work. The purpose of the methodological audit is not so much to search for fabrications and falsifications, but to assess systematic biases associated with the interviewer's effect, the level of refusals and the quality of the questionnaire, to obtain additional interpretations of the obtained distributions, which will ultimately lead to an increase in the quality of the information collected. The work is of interest to specialists and experts in the field of measuring public opinion, will be useful to students of sociological and marketing specialties, as well as to everyone interested in the methodology of mass polls.