Why do people conduct political polls considering the very small number of prople they contact?
What if these "random" people just by coincidence happen to favor one party or another? Wouldn’t these polls then be considered inaccurate? If that is the case then why have a poll given the risk of inaccurate information? Why poll 1,000 people in a country of 30,000,000?
Because they work. If done well, they are highly accurate. Political campaign ads are based on the same kind of polling data, so politicians who say they do not believe in polls, or use them, are living because they use the same methods and techniques almost daily.
Look at all the advertising based on data mining and marketing analysis. If you could not predict how large numbers of people will behave based on a sample of that population there would be no such thing as advertisements and commercials because they would not be effective. However, we are surrounded by it because it works. It works so well in fact, that companies like amazon.com will not even reveal how many mathematicians they employ, let alone what they are working on.
Sampling is a complex issue itself and there are different methods and strategies that can be applied depending on the information you want to gather.
March 28th, 2010 at 10:16 pm
For media fodder.
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March 28th, 2010 at 10:53 pm
So they can get the answers they want, then spin them to support their contentions/agenda.
Note that with these polls, they don’t state what part of town they are conducted in, what state, # of people phoned/contacted, the organizers behind the poll, etc.
In other words, being totally out of context, you can pretty much use any poll or document to make it look as if it supports your point.
I enjoy answering these phone polls, and still notice that with the wording of the questions as well as the choices you are given to choose between, you are still limited to their agenda. And usually before the poll is halfway through, it becomes crystal clear who/who’s agenda is the driving force behind the poll itself.
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Experience
March 28th, 2010 at 11:19 pm
Because they work. If done well, they are highly accurate. Political campaign ads are based on the same kind of polling data, so politicians who say they do not believe in polls, or use them, are living because they use the same methods and techniques almost daily.
Look at all the advertising based on data mining and marketing analysis. If you could not predict how large numbers of people will behave based on a sample of that population there would be no such thing as advertisements and commercials because they would not be effective. However, we are surrounded by it because it works. It works so well in fact, that companies like amazon.com will not even reveal how many mathematicians they employ, let alone what they are working on.
Sampling is a complex issue itself and there are different methods and strategies that can be applied depending on the information you want to gather.
References :