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Example research essay topic: Taking Into Account Presidential Elections - 1,196 words

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Sampling Polling has become one of the most essential things of the modern democracy. It helps authorities make right solutions that satisfy the majority of the population and gives people an opportunity to express their point of view and to be heard. Unfortunately, polling is not an exact science and it is not free from mistakes that often happen and may seriously mislead the public. The main reason of many polling mistakes is insufficiently conducted sampling.

When used correctly, sampling can yield precise, reliable, and valid results. The improper use of sampling can lead to such methodological disaster as Presidential Elections 1936 and 1948. The problem of polling errors can be analyzed using the recent example of the Presidential Elections 2000. Different polls presented a wide range of estimates of George W. Bush's lead (from 4 % to 12 %), but on election day he won by an unexpectedly small margin. This situation can be explained by a number of common errors made by various pollsters.

The most important element of polling is sampling that should be done properly and with much care. It is an old rule that the smaller the sample the greater the chances of error. Nevertheless, the size of the sample is not as important as the representativeness of the sample. A large sample, carelessly chosen, can lead to greater error than a properly selected small sample. It is very difficult to choose people who would present the opinion of the whole population.

According to Townsend, to make the results more accurate, the pollsters should choose samples taking into account such factors as: 1. The section of the country he lives in East, South, North, Middle West, or West. 2. The type of community he lives india city, small city, village, or farm. 3. His standard of living poor, average, or wealthy. 4. Whether he is a man or woman. 5. How old he is. 6.

How much schooling each person has. 7. What his race and religion are. Before the sample can be made up accurately, facts about the population must be known. Figures must be gathered from the latest census reports and other sources so that it can be known what the make-up of the cross section should be. But these regulations are not always followed by pollsters One of the most frequent polling errors is in the data collection. The so-called in-person interview used to be the standard method for random sample polling.

Now some organizations still make extensive use of in-person interviews, but the major part of polling today is done by telephone, because it is much faster, cheaper and more convenient. Some decades ago this type of data collection was heavily biased, as a rather small percentage of people had a telephone. Today, with a telephone in 97 % of all households, the chances of bias are significantly reduced, though not eliminated entirely. At the same time there appears another problem.

Many polling organizations choose telephone numbers randomly using the lists. But this approach is biased, as not all telephone numbers are registered in such lists. To reduce the problem created by unlisted telephone numbers, most polling organizations now use a technique known as random digit dialing. Regardless of how the data are gathered, in person or by telephone, the polling organization must decide how to deal with people who refuse to be interviewed, and people who cannot be contacted. In the case of a failure to make contact, most polling organizations prefer to make repeated efforts to reach the person targeted for the interview rather than to substitute for someone else who may not be agreeable to the set standards. Unfortunately this tendency is not always preserved by pollsters, who in case of failure often try to find a person who will be more favorable to the interviewer, the relevance of this person to the sample is not taken into account.

So these polling mistakes and many others contributed to the diversity of estimates of Bush's lead in Election 2000. What the public received was mere numbers. Behind those numbers was a lot of work done, and the public could not control the course of this work. To estimate the accuracy of polls the public should know who is sponsoring the polls, whether the sponsor an organization interested in the objective research or it gathers data furthering the interests of some special group. It is very important to know the questions and to define whether they are neutral or loaded. All these conditions influence the results of polls and cause diversity in their results.

Taking into account all the polling mistakes made before the previous election, our pollsters should start to play fair and use the polling techniques carefully following the set procedures. To achieve the best result I would combine both probability and non-probability types of sampling. First I would conduct a stratified random sampling which I think is the most efficient among the probability types. This type of sampling increases the representativeness of the sample and its results are easier to analyze and classify. Then I would get down to one of the non-probability types, quota sampling that begins with a matrix describing the characteristics of the target population.

The goal of this type of sampling is to select people to reflect some characteristics found in the population. This will give us more detailed results and show dependencies between some characteristics of respondents and their choice. Use of several types of sampling will increase the accuracy of the polling. As Kleiman stated, if there are several polls reporting on the same race, all showing the same candidate in the lead, then the sampling error of all the polls combined is smaller than the sampling error in any one poll; the sampling error goes down as the square root of the sample size, so four polls of 1000 voters each have half the sampling error of a single poll with the same sample size. Of course, I would control very carefully how the polling is conducted. I would train and instruct the interviewers and pay attention to the wording of all the questions.

When the data is collected I would willingly submit it to impartial analysis. I hope these measures would help me to receive quite accurate results. References: 1. Kleiman, M.

A. R. (2002 October 30) Error Bands around Polling Results. Mark A. R.

Kleiman Website. A Fair and Balanced Weblog. Retrieved May 19, 2004, from web 2. Kudlow, L. (2000 July 18) The Weak-End of Polling: Poor methodology is making for some poor results. Americas Conservative Magazine National Review Online.

Retrieved May 18, 2004, from web 3. Taylor, H. (1998 May 4) Myth and Reality in Reporting Sampling Error: How the Media Confuse and Mislead Readers and Viewers. An independent, nonpartisan resource on trends in American public opinion. Polling Report. Retrieved, May 18, 2004, from web 4. Townsend, R.

B. (2002 February 23) Why Do Polls Get Different Results? Constructing a Postwar World. The G. I. Roundtable Series in context. Retrieved, May 18, 2004, from web 5.

The Why Files. (2004) Polling: Do It Wrong? [Electronic version]. Retrieved, May 18, 2004, from web


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