Public Opinion Surveys Public opinion surveys, or polls, are exactly what they sound like; a survey that asks the public their opinion on a topic. Polls are a form of inductive generalization because they gather information from a number of people and generalize their findings to cover the rest of the population. With that said, polls are used specifically for this purpose, which we can see in the media every day. One of the largest problems with the polls we see every day is that the details of the polls are generally not given, but only the results. This can lead to a poorly-constructed poll taken out of context, giving a weak argument that supports the media outlet reporting it, while the public takes their word for it. Some of the characteristics
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There were many questions asked in this poll, but I will be focusing on “What should be the main focus of the U.S. government in dealing with the issue of illegal
Immigration?” The sample size was conducted over 1,012 adult Americans (Turner.com/cnn), which, according to “What Is A Survey”, a properly selected sample of 1,000 people can accurately reflect the general population (WhatIsASurvey.com). According to this CNN/ORC poll, the survey was conducted over the telephone, to both landline and cell phone users over the age of …show more content…
Unlike the CNN survey, the discussion about Common Core was a popular topic coming to light, but was not the target of a crisis or large event. The target population are Americans over the age of 18, some of which are African Americans, teachers, Hispanics, and parents, the rest of which are classified under a “public” category. I would give this survey a 10. It fits all of the criteria of a strong poll. It meets the requirements of a strong poll. It has a large sample size, which is taken from randomly-chosen phone numbers numbers, with a computerized system to avoid human bias, with well-constructed questions, proper timing, and a statistical representation of the general public. On top of this, the margin of error was between one and one-half to two percent, which is fairly low for a sample of this size (EducationNext.org).
In our society, public opinion surveys are a very popular method of gathering information and using that to represent the general population. Many news outlets use polls to prove their point, but even the large corporations can make mistakes or intentionally attempt to skew the results for their viewers. In order to fully understand what contributes to the strength of a poll, it is important to know whether proper organization, unbiased questionnaire design, random samples, and an effective plan of data collection and processing were used in the creation of this survey
There were many questions asked in this poll, but I will be focusing on “What should be the main focus of the U.S. government in dealing with the issue of illegal
Immigration?” The sample size was conducted over 1,012 adult Americans (Turner.com/cnn), which, according to “What Is A Survey”, a properly selected sample of 1,000 people can accurately reflect the general population (WhatIsASurvey.com). According to this CNN/ORC poll, the survey was conducted over the telephone, to both landline and cell phone users over the age of …show more content…
Unlike the CNN survey, the discussion about Common Core was a popular topic coming to light, but was not the target of a crisis or large event. The target population are Americans over the age of 18, some of which are African Americans, teachers, Hispanics, and parents, the rest of which are classified under a “public” category. I would give this survey a 10. It fits all of the criteria of a strong poll. It meets the requirements of a strong poll. It has a large sample size, which is taken from randomly-chosen phone numbers numbers, with a computerized system to avoid human bias, with well-constructed questions, proper timing, and a statistical representation of the general public. On top of this, the margin of error was between one and one-half to two percent, which is fairly low for a sample of this size (EducationNext.org).
In our society, public opinion surveys are a very popular method of gathering information and using that to represent the general population. Many news outlets use polls to prove their point, but even the large corporations can make mistakes or intentionally attempt to skew the results for their viewers. In order to fully understand what contributes to the strength of a poll, it is important to know whether proper organization, unbiased questionnaire design, random samples, and an effective plan of data collection and processing were used in the creation of this survey