The next time your national newscaster informs you in a firm and knowing voice what Canadians’ views are as result of a poll conducted by “Canada’s Market Intelligence Leader”, remember this post.
The next time your national newscaster informs you in a firm and knowing voice what Canadians’ views are as result of a poll conducted by “Canada’s Market Intelligence Leader”, remember this post.
Thats hilarious. I’ve never been phoned for a poll being conducted by any of the major polling companies like Ipsos Reid and the like, but if those are the questions…oh my!!!!
Kate, you have a knack for writing the best teasers for a headline. You could teach CP news a thing or two.
I’ve been through a similar experience – a pollster was obviously seeking “data” on an ad campaign promoting private entrepeneurship that was being run by the provincial government.
The questions were absurd and clearly geared towards producing a favourable result. ie:
“Do you think that women can be successful entrepreneurs?”
Now, if you answered “yes” to that question, the pollster could then report back to government that their campaign was a success!
He didn’t have an easy time of it with me.
If anyone else has ever used statistical data analysis in industry, like stat process controls or quality bench marking, you know that without precise numbers and focused sampling the statistics you get can mean anything. I worked with an industrial staistician that thought that statistically sampling “opinion” was neither a science nor a precise one at that….this from a guy who was a former quality engineer now involved in consumer market studies.
Polls with discrete selected response like who will you vote for: A-B or C? are about as close as you can get to reliability in opinion polling….any more complicated concepts than this can be sculpted to have reponse conform to leading questions…predetermined conclusions are not uncommon in non scientific studies with a political motive at their core….very imprecise and certainly nothing that could be classified as a science….you need scientific method for that and I have seen little of this displayed in the formulation of opinion polling.
Polls and surveys are always the favorite weapon of choice by the FUDster crowds.
I personally think two things should be done with these things if they are to be presented to the public such as in a news story or advertisement.
1) The person funding these things should be identifed at the same time the summary of findings are presented to the public. “blah blah of people think SDA is a good blog. This survey funded by the bloggers of Canada.”
2) Any person should have complete access to the raw data – by law – if so requested. That would include things like the questions asked and answers, relative location of people surveyed, etc. but stop short of revealing personal information.
Anyone have any better ideas on how to clean up these obviously biased polls and surveys?
I disagree- This is a ‘public opinion’ poll, not a quest for the truth. Nowhere does Ipsos Reid mention that they are going to publish the real cause of global warming based on the poll, etc.. Do you really think that Ipsos Reid thinks they’re getting anything other than the publics personal opinions on these issues. Many polls have found GWB to be an idiot, those poll results do not make him one any more than they make him not one.
Ipsos (Scott) Reid poll???
Exactly what kind of value is the public getting from all the useless polls ordered by the government.
We’re already bombarded with meaningless stats from Statscan which seem to change on a daily basis.
Now that public has a better idea of the cost of Adscam, maybe it’s time that the auditor general investigate this area as well.
Exactly what kind of value is the public getting from all the useless polls ordered by the government.
We’re already bombarded with meaningless stats from Statscan which seem to change on a daily basis.
Now that public has a better idea of the cost of Adscam, isn’t it time that the auditor general investigate this area as well?
‘Canada’s Market Intelligeance Leader’!?! Bwaaahahaha!