Time Required

This project will require two hours of classroom orientation and discussion conducted by the teacher and an additional five in-class hours for students to create, administer, analyze and evaluate their survey research.

Materials

Procedures

1. Introduce the Basic Concepts

Use the following sample narrative to base your presentation:

Because of the way the human mind works, we often find it easier to understand things if we reduce them to numerical values. For instance, by defining our society on the basis of different ethnic, gender, age and socio-economic groups, we can more easily understand how these groups view the world of politics. And by using what is called a survey, we can fairly easily measure how and what people think about particular issues or candidates. By getting an idea of how various component groups see things, we can better grasp how people in general view political ideas. Political scientists use opinion polling to test hypotheses, or theories about how the real world operates. Politicians and political analysts often consult public opinion polls in order to develop a clearer image of what voters think about issues and candidates. Modern scientific methods have only been used in the pursuit of an understanding of the political scene during the last sixty years or so. Today, Americans are so used to hearing about the latest poll results that we take the information, and the way it is created, for granted. In this exercise you will learn how to interpret professional polling data and then create your own survey to test public opinion in the class or across the student body at the school.

2. Orient Students to Public Opinion Polling

a. The value of demographic information

In a liberal democratic society such as ours public policy, or the actions of government, are based on the expectations and desires of voters. Demographic information allows the observer to track what different groups in society think about various political issues.

b. The specifics of a particular poll

Well-known media outlets regularly conduct polls of voting aged people across the country. This information is published and analyzed so that the public can have an idea of how others view political and social issues. Professional public opinion polls always report important statistical information such as, how many respondents participated in the poll, what sorts of measures were used and how significant the margin of error, or chance that the answers portrayed are incorrect, is in terms of the particular opinion poll in question.

3. Thinking about Demographics

a. Why all the fuss about demographics?

Does a person's age, gender or ethnic heritage affect the way that they think about political issues? Most of our ideas about politics come from our families and communities. We are influenced from a young age by how our parents and other role models talk about and react to political ideas and political figures. Political scientists suggest that our individual backgrounds and positions in society have an effect on our political outlook. Students can reflect on their own circumstances in order to gain a greater understanding of why and how persons with different backgrounds than their own might have different political views.

b. Why choose the groups that we do?

To a certain extent both logic and expediency help determine how we break down society into different groups. For instance, if we were to create too many demographic groups, based on too many factors or variables, we would end up defining a very narrow segment of society. Social scientists strive to explain things in the broadest way possible so that our findings will have the greatest possible application. The broader based the groups we are looking at are, the greater the probability is that we will learn something meaningful about that group.

c. Define some important demographic groups

Students need to consider for themselves what sort of information they want to uncover. Most social scientists (and professional polling organizations) use broad categories to define society. In addition to those groups mentioned above, students may also want to consider grouping people on the basis of religious affiliation, membership in clubs or even pet ownership. The only guideline here is that the information sought after must have some relationship to the reasons for conducting a poll in the first place.

4. Create a Survey Research Project

a. The research question and scope of the project

The first step in developing any sort of social science research project is to come up with a question you would like to answer. For instance, we might be interested in finding out how the opinions of one ethnic group differs from another group with respect to specific issues like defense spending, social security, welfare programs or civil rights. Likewise, the viewpoints of males and females might be measured to determine whether or not they are similar on the same sorts of issues. Perhaps a combination of these different demographic groups will allow us to answer a particular question. In any case, a research question must first be developed and then the different demographic categories that will be used can be decided upon. Additionally, students will decide how large a sample group they will use for administering their survey.

b. Developing the research instrument

Working in groups, students must next create the list of question they will ask in their public opinion survey. Remember, the questions themselves must in some way help to answer the larger research question that they have posed. Survey questions should be easy to understand and simple to answer. Students may use a standard form in offering respondents four or five possible response categories for each question. For example, a survey question might begin with a statement such as:

Democrats are better at managing the economy than Republicans

Then the response categories could be organized into a simple scale along the lines of; (1) disagree strongly, (2) disagree, (3) agree, (4) agree strongly. Demographic questions, on the other hand can offer numerous possible response categories including (1) African American, (2) Asian American, (3) European American, etc. Using this method, an additional category can be added to capture responses other than the groups mentioned in the list. These sorts of responses are called closed-ended because respondents are forced to choose from a short list of possible answers. This makes the researcher's job simpler because numeric values can be easily assigned to each possible response. Student's surveys ought to include about fifteen to twenty questions, including those which identify demographic characteristics. The survey should be neatly typewritten and clearly copied so that respondents have no trouble in reading and understanding the questions

5. Administering the survey

Next students must actually distribute their surveys to either members of their own class, or if possible, to a larger group of students at their school. In order to get an even more accurate assessment of opinion with regard to the questions in the survey, students might want to include members of their own families and others in the community. A sample for a public opinion survey should include somewhere between twenty-five and fifty respondents. (A sample of one hundred would be a very ambitious goal, but one that would yield more significant findings than would a smaller group.)

6. Scoring and analyzing the survey

Once the surveys have been taken, students must score and then compile the data from the forms. Each answer is scored on the basis of the numeric system that was developed in the last section. Now students are ready to begin doing some simple statistics to get a clearer idea of how the survey turned out. Students will be able to report both percentages of scores and mean values of particular answers.

For instance, by dividing the number of female responses to a demographic question on gender by the entire number of surveys scored students can determine the percentage of women in the sample. Additionally, the response to any other question can be reported as a percentage of the entire sample. The mean, or average response to a particular question, is derived by adding up all of the actual responses to the question and by dividing that number by the number of surveys scored. After students have compiled their data and run a few statistical analyses they will be prepared to draw some conclusions from their work. The final phase of any social science research project is writing up a report that clearly documents the project itself, as well as any findings that the research team has made. This can easily be a group writing project allowing each student to write about their contributions to the overall research effort. Students should be encouraged to read as much or as little into their surveys as their data allows. But remember, any assertions made by the researchers must be firmly rooted in the factual information that they have compiled. The final wrap-up could include an in-class presentation on the research team's findings.

Assessment

As a team project, groups could be assessed on the basis of the materials they are able to provide along with their final report. Additionally, groups could be graded on the basis of the reports they turn in. The final paper assignment could include a provision encouraging students to reflect in their reports the level to which they are able to draw conclusions from their data. Students, again, should be encouraged to use their survey research to glean as much information as is possible from the data. Corollary to this, a check-list could be developed by the teacher to make sure that each student in a given group has had an opportunity to learn more about demographics and public opinion polling.

Resources

Teachers should rely upon either one of the major newspapers or on one of their websites for public opinion polling information: