Many of you may know that I am not political at all, but I am stuck between two very political people in my house – my mother and my husband. My mother and my husband were the best of friends until the first presidential election came along after my mom moved in with us. Now my house is the proverbial house divided – with mom on one side and my husband on the other. As you can imagine, I hate election years.
The one advantage to having such strong convictions in the house is both my mother and my husband are registered with their respective political parties. As a result, both parties mail their national surveys to my home. Because my mother and husband drive me crazy with their rhetoric, I quickly confiscate the surveys to use in my research methods classes. That is, I get to use the surveys to show you exactly what a bad survey looks like – lol.
Instructions: Please review the two pdf documents titled Republican and Democratic National Surveys linked below. Use the “pratfalls” listed in this week’s lecture to identify five errors each of the parties made in constructing the surveys. Please use this format:
Republican:
- Section III Question 1 is leading, contains prestige bias, and contains highly emotional words…. Be sure to include a short explanation of the question.
- Section III Question 2 ….
And, then the same for the other survey.
Democratic:
- Section III Question 3 is leading, contains prestige bias, and contains highly emotional words…. Be sure to include a short explanation of the question.
- Section III Question 4 ….
Lastly, and very important… in a paragraph or two, discuss the ethical implications of this type of survey “research.”
- Additional documents required for this assignment (Republican and Democratic national surveys) are attached.
