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Public Opinion Poll In America

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The public-opinion poll is the most common way research her’s measure public opinion today. The poll taker asks a question to a sample group. This sample group is a small number of people that represent the entire population you want to ask the question to. For example, if the pollster wants to know “What do college students think of the American National Government class?” it would not be possible to ask all college students in the country so the pollster would ask 1000 students from a variety of different schools across the country the question. Then take the percent of total the number of students (of the 1000) that Love this class and call that the national percent that love this class. If 990 students loved the class then 99% nationally love this class. …show more content…

First thing that could go wrong is selection bias. This is when the sample does not accurately reflect the population you are researching. An example of this would be if we only asked student who got an A if they loved this class. Another thing that can affect the reliability of a poll is the wording. An example of this would be if we asked our students “Did you love or hate your American National Government class?” This did not give an option of neither. Another thing that can make a poll unreliable is social desirability effect, this is when the person answering gives the pollster the answer they think the pollster wants. In our case this would be having you the Instructor ask the question to the students the day before our final exam. Many student will say they love it because they want to do well in the

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