Clarence, you have made some very valid points. There are also some things that you have stated that would be up for debate. The points that you made around the polling methods and sample size are very valid points. The inference that you made at the end of your post about the lower reliability of recent polls is questionable.
The polling method and sample size arguments are well thought out and certainly supported by the outside references you provided. The polling method can definitely lead to numbers being skewed due to several factors that are determined by the person or group performing the poll. The sample size can also impact the outcome of the poll based on the way the sample population is selected. The size of the sample population will lead to a larger swing in the mean numbers if the sample population is smaller. The swing in the mean result could lead to a lower confidence margin.
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The information age makes it much easier for the sample size of the poll to be increased with little effort or cost. The increase in the sample size would provide for the margin of error to decrease due to the increased sample size. However, the increase in sample size would only prove beneficial if the other biases that can come into play within the population selection process do not come into play on the
With looming elections, polls with independent samples were taken to obtain the following data concerning the number of people who favor two different major
In Anny Shin’s article , “ Takoma Park 16-year-old savors his history making moment at the polls” she explains to us how this 16 year old boy enjoyed being able to do something a lot of young people can't and that is to vote. Takoma City is making a huge step by being the first place a person younger than 18 could vote. As evidence from ,“ Takoma Park 16-year-old savors his history making moment at the polls” , by Anny Shin when she writes, “Ben Miller plans to step into the booth and become at the Takoma Park Community Center and do something that the country’s other 16 year olds can’t: cast a vote in an election”.This is a good idea, because the U.S has low voter turnout rates and if we can lower the age of voters, then we might just see
The Quinnipiac University poll was done during early September to test the waters before the first presidential debate between Clinton and Trump. The sample size was roughly 960, supposedly voters from across the nation with a margin of error of +- 3.2 which isn’t horrible. The numbers look fine and because it was a nationwide poll, the possibility of getting a fair and accurate cross section of views is fairly high, that being said there are a few issues with this poll that cause me to be concerned with the accuracy of this poll for many reasons.
The historians or professional observers of the presidential survey the same participants for 2009 and 2000? The researcher polls people of particular professions to conduct the survey, and the possibility of these people being the same establishes if their mindsets have change or remained the same over a certain period of time.
_____ Referring to Question #10 above, which of the following best describes why you might be cautious in relying on these results? (A) The sample size is too small to make any reliable inference about the entire population. (B) Silly questions sometimes generate silly responses, not true opinions. (C) The respondents may not be a representative sample of any population of interest. (D) Newspapers tend to skew results to fit their own agenda.
According to Nate Cohn of the The New York Times says “the poll is extremely and admirable transparent: It has published a data set and the documentation necessary to replicate the survey.” The poll appears to display a non-probability sampling method with the determine sample size
Shining the OutRiderr Spotlight on a Washington Post article from May 19th By John Woodrow Cox, Scott Clement and Theresa Vargas.
This then leads into what is the sample size is too small and is not a great representation of the overall population. If the sample size is too small, it could lead to selection bias which is when the sample does a terrible job representing the actual ideologies of the population in that area. Push polling, which is asking questions in a way that gives the pollster the answer that is being sought out, is often another technique used to potentially skew the outcome. All of these are factors that could potentially be important when it comes to the outcome of the polls. Make sure to keep in mind that whenever a poll is taken there is always a way that someone/something can skew it to their
I’ve never really thought or cared about where I stand in politics, but after taking the two surveys the results were pretty interesting. I was able to see where I stand in politics, and find it agreeable to my own personal beliefs
The two surveys utilized data from the National Annenberg Election Study. The data was retrieved using Internet and telephone collection methods. An advantage to this method was the utilization of two pools of sampling. The pools were each collected from the Internet, and one telephone. Also, the author used already available data. This significantly reduced the time and financial strain that a survey could take up. The sample was collected through random digit dialing and availability to the Internet. This adds to the reliability of the results. Traditional phone surveys use a set list of phone numbers. This would exclude those who have private or unlisted numbers. This problem is avoided with random digit dialing. The surveys were conducted during four different waves. The waves were from winter, spring, summer, and fall waves. The winter wave resulted in 19,190 respondents. The spring wave resulted in 17, 747 interviews. The summer wave included 20,052 interviews. The fall wave resulted in 19,241 respondents. To be
The title of the article is a little misleading because the polls that are misleading are the ones that need to “stop the polling insanity.” Will they? No. So, the point of the article is that it is up to the individual reading the polls to assess
The first difference between the two polls exists with regards to the question, “Do you think the U.S. government is doing enough or not doing enough to prevent a future terrorist attack on American soil?” (See Appendix A for graphic depiction). Overall, the respondents in my convenience poll were more diverse in their response choice, with the largest percentage being those who think the Unite States Government was doing enough at 46.43% and the lowest percent being those who are unsure at 25%. This is only a 21.43 point gap. Whereas the scientific poll showed a
Public opinion polls come in a wide-set of different subjects and are good examples of inductive arguments that are seen and used in our day to day lives to measure the public’s views regarding a particular topic or topics done so by taking a non-biased survey/questions. This is an excellent example of inductive arguments, because the person or party/entity conducting these surveys, is looking to validate their argument and assumptions, or to provide a guarantee of truth in the concluding result. However, it is not simply easy to rely on “experts” and believe that the data from these polls they collect, are completely accurate and are not skewed from their own biases. Since a survey is an inductive generalization, a sample is taken from the target population from which a conclusion is drawn regarding the entire population.Which makes these inductive arguments fall into two categories: either weak or strong.
The results of the three surveys do correlate with each other. For all three surveys, it determined that I am a Liberal but not too extreme. However, all three of them were a little different. The one that Mr. Lynch has gave us, I was neither conservative or liberal, but I was leaning a little towards liberal. The second survey I did from the links, I was moderate liberal. Finally for the third survey, the result stated that I'm a very liberal. I believe the only reason all three results vary because of the amount of questions and kind of questions they gave. For example, first survey had 40 questions, second survey had only 10 questions, and the last one had 20 question. In addition, not all surveys had the same answer choice. One had 6 choices, another had 5 choices, and the other one had only 3 choices to choose from. Was I surprised by the results? I honestly don't know because I have no
While the majority claim that taking a step to deport people is cruel and inconsistent with our legal value that undocumented immigrant strengthen our economy and country. Claim-makers use the polls because they offer feedback at the early stages in the process and to determine whether their claim is effective or not. Policymakers often base their decision on what the polls say. Public opinion overall there is little support to deport all those undocumented immigrants in the U.S. nonetheless survey in the past have found great support for building a barrier along the Mexican border and change the constitution. This form of public- opinion is often viewed as inaccurate because polls are formalized situation in which people know they are being solicited for analysis and this can affect what they are willing to