Understanding Public Opinion Polls
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Taylor & Francis Inc
Published:6th Sep '17
Should be back in stock very soon
This paperback is available in another edition too:
- Hardback£135.00(9781138066557)
Polls are conducted every day all around the world for almost everything (especially during elections). But not every poll is a good one. A lot depends on the type of questions asked, how they are asked and whether the sample used is truly representative. And these are not the only aspects of a poll that should be checked. So how does one separate the chaff from the wheat?
That’s whereUnderstanding Public Opinion Polls comes in. Written by a well-known author with over thirty years of experience, the book is built around a checklist for polls that describes the various aspects of polls to pay attention to if one intends to use its results. By comprehensively answering the questions in the checklist, a good idea of the quality of the poll is obtained.
Features:
- Provides readers with a deeper understanding of practical and theoretical aspects of opinion polls while assuming no background in mathematics or statistics
- Shows how to determine if a poll is good or bad
- Provides a historical perspective and includes examples from real polls
- Gives special attention to online and election polls
The book gives an overview of many aspects of polls – questionnaire design, sample selection, estimation, margins of error, nonresponse and weighting. It is essential reading for those who want to gain a better understanding of the ins and outs of polling including those who are confronted with polls in their daily life or work or those who need to learn how to conduct their own polls.
"It is a welcome arrival at this fraught moment for the field. Bethlehem does not flinch from discussing the vulnerabilities of public opinion research, e.g., plummeting response rates, voters’ tendency to "satisfice" by opting for easy responses rather than honest responses, the menace of online snap polls, etc. His objective is to help a new generation of survey researchers avoid (or at least finesse) these problems. . . The book is nonetheless a solid introduction to the field for young researchers preparing to adapt to the challenges presented by more elusive and skeptical voters."
~R. P. Seyb, CHOICE
"Summarizing, the book is well written, its content is clearly presented, and many practical illustrations should give the reader a good basis for answering the questions of the Checklist for Polls and for assessing whether a concrete poll can be trusted. It can be recommended to everybody who is involved in surveys and polls, be it as consumer of poll results or as participant in a related project."~Peter Hackl, Stat Papers
"It is a welcome arrival at this fraught moment for the field. Bethlehem does not flinch from discussing the vulnerabilities of public opinion research, e.g., plummeting response rates, voters’ tendency to "satisfice" by opting for easy responses rather than honest responses, the menace of online snap polls, etc. His objective is to help a new generation of survey researchers avoid (or at least finesse) these problems. . . The book is nonetheless a solid introduction to the field for young researchers preparing to adapt to the challenges presented by more elusive and skeptical voters."~R. P. Seyb, CHOICE
"Summarizing, the book is well written, its content is clearly presented, and many practical illustrations should give the reader a good basis for answering the questions of the Checklist for Polls and for assessing whether a concrete poll can be trusted. It can be recommended to everybody who is involved in surveys and polls, be it as consumer of poll results or as participant in a related project."~Peter Hackl, Stat Papers
ISBN: 9781498769747
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 456g
286 pages