Page 261 - Statistics for Dummies

Polls, Polls, and More Polls
In This Chapter Chapter 16
▶ Realizing the impact of polls and surveys
▶ Going behind the scenes of polls and surveys
▶ Detecting biased and inaccurate survey results

urveys are all the rage amid today’s information explosion. Everyone
Swants to know how the public feels about issues from prescription
drug prices and methods of disciplining children to approval ratings of the
president and ratings of reality TV shows. Polls and surveys are a big part
of American life; they’re a vehicle for quickly getting information about how
you feel, what you think, and how you live your life, and they’re a means of
quickly disseminating information about important issues. Surveys highlight
controversial topics, raise awareness, make political points, stress the impor-
tance of an issue, and educate or persuade the public.

Survey results can be powerful, because when many people hear that “such
and such percentage of the American people do this or that,” they accept
these results as the truth, and then make decisions and form opinions based
on that information. But in fact, many surveys don’t provide correct, complete,
or even fair or balanced information.
In this chapter, I discuss the impact of surveys and how they’re used, and I
take you behind the scenes of how surveys are designed and conducted so
you know what to watch for when examining survey results and how to run
your own surveys right. I also talk about how to interpret survey results and
how to spot biased and inaccurate information, so that you can determine for
yourself which results to believe and which to ignore.

Recognizing the Impact of Polls

A survey is an instrument that collects data through questions and answers.
It is used to gather information about the opinions, behaviors, demographics,
lifestyles, and other reportable characteristics of the population of interest.

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