INQ-240 | Statistics & Public Opinion

Full Title: Statistics & Public Opinion

Topic Description:

The earliest documented public opinion poll came in the form of a local straw poll in 1824 for the Presidential Election between Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams; in 1916, using millions of postcards and counting the returns, The Literary Digest performed the first national survey. Since then, methodologies in statistics have been developed to explore the variability, biases, and limitations of public opinion research. In this class, we examine those statistical methods, discuss what polls can and cannot tell us, and explore the opinions of Virginians via a class-created question asked on a real poll conducted by the Institute for Public Opinion Research at Roanoke College. We will see first-hand how difficult public opinion research can be as well as learn current methods being used by survey researchers.

Counts as Global? No

Topic Approved: November 2018