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Internet Activities: Public Opinion and Voting
 
 
 

Just the Facts, Please

Compare & Contrast

Visit the website of the American Association for Public Opinion Research at:

1. Go to the "Ethics and Standards" page and select "Best Practices for Survey and Public Opinion Research." What are the twelve best practices listed here? In what ways did Frank Luntz violate them?

2. Go back to the "Ethics and Standards" page and select "Code of Professional Ethics and Practices." Which parts of the code seem most important? How did Frank Luntz not live up to them?

3. Go once again to the "Ethics and Standards" page and select "AAPOR Statement on Push Polling." What is push polling? Why is AAPOR opposed to it?


Now head to the Gallup organization at:

1. What are the different areas in which the organization conducts polls? Who would find such information useful?

2. Pick two political issues on the site and find out the results of the poll.

3. Click on "How Polls are Conducted." What are the important procedures necessary to obtain an accurate poll? What practices can lead to inaccurate polling?
 
       
   
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Exploration

1. On the main web page of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research (http://www.RoperCenter.uconn.edu), go to the left hand side and hit the link that reads "Online Access to Data."

You will then find a new subheading under "Online Access to Data" entitled "Presidential Job Performance." Hit this link.

Now the screen reads "Presidential Job Approval Ratings." Under this heading, you will see to the right a rectangular box with the heading "Gallup ratings for" and a small downward arrow. Hit that arrow until you arrive at "Bush."

Now hit the small "go" square immediately to the right of the arrow. You will now have poll data for President Bushs "approval-disapproval" ratings in chronological order, from the most recent to the earliest date of his presidency.

Perform the same operation for Nixon, Carter, Reagan, and one other president of your own choice, using the "Gallup ratings for" box, its selection arrow, and then hitting "go."

  • Which one of the presidents selected appeared to enjoy the most consistently high approval ratings throughout his presidency?
  • What appears to be the most common pattern for presidential approval ratings over the course of a president's term in office? In other words, does a president's approval generally go up, go down, or stay the same over time? Cite some specific examples of polls that are indicative of that pattern.
  • Find the single highest and lowest approval/disapproval poll rating for each president during his stay in office. Can you link up the ratings to any particular event, domestic and/or global, that was occurring at the time?
  • Finally, look at the poll ratings for each president during his first three months in office (sometimes known as the "honeymoon" period). Were those ratings relatively high for each president you selected? If so, what does this tell you about the public's expectations surrounding new presidents? Which one of the presidents selected had the highest (on average) approval ratings during that three month period?

2. Go to the Gallup Poll website (http://www.gallup.com/poll/releases) and find the November 29, 2001 poll analyses by Frank Newport on American support for the long-term war against global terrorism. After reading the related narrative and perusing the poll data, answer the questions.

You may wish to return to the Gallup Poll site in the forthcoming months to measure whether support for the war against terrorism remains consistently high and/or favorable.

  • How did the November, 2001 polls compare to the early October, 2001 polls regarding American support for a long-term war against terrorism?
  • In early November, 2001, what percentage of Americans were "very satisfied" with the progress of the war in Afghanistan compared to the percentage of the public who were "very satisfied" in late November of 2001? How do you explain the changes in percentages?
  • How does support for the war compare among Republicans, Democrats, and Independents?
  • How would you characterize the level of support for the use of ground troops in Afghanistan?
  • What percentage of Americans support the idea of widening the war against terrorism to include Iraq?
  • What percentage of Americans believe that Osama bin Laden was behind the September 11 attacks?

3. The Institute for Research in Social Science (IRSS) (http://www.irss.unc.edu/data_archive/) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill maintains archives of public opinion polls, including an exclusive archive of Louis Harris public opinion data. The opinion poll question database is searchable from the internet.

Go to the URL and you will be at the public opinion poll database of the IRSS. Select the link to "Do a Search of our Public Opinion Poll Question Database." You will be at the search page, which searches the public opinion database by keyword and year. In the top search box select "string" on the left and enter the phrase "term limits" in the box provided. Then move to the box labeled "Within:" and select "Question Text"; move to the "From" box and select "Louis Harris & Assoc. Polls"; move to the "For the following years" box, scroll down and select "Since 1990". Then click on the "Do the search" box at the bottom of the screen. You have just queried the IRSS’s public opinion poll database for questions that might have been asked in Louis Harris & Assoc. Polls containing the key search string "term limits." At this point a screen will come up that gives the results of the search. A number of questions that have been asked with the "term limits" search string in them have been asked in Harris Polls in the 1990s. Select one of the questions, and select the link to "Display all question information." Answer the questions below related to your selected item.

  • What date was the question used in a Harris poll?
  • Describe the population sample.
  • Summarize the response information. Does this agree with your own personal opinion on the answer to the question?
  • Does knowing what other people believe have an influence on your own opinion? Why or why not?
  
   
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