Poll Case

What to Ask Yourself Before You Believe a Poll

1.Who carried out the survey? Do you trust the source?

2.What was the population? Whose opinions are being sought? Who exactly are they trying to find out about?

3.How was the sample selected? Was the sample random and representative? Do you think it was large enough?

4.How large was the sample?

5.What was the response rate?

6.How were the subjects contacted? By phone (both cell and land), mail, face-to-face interview?

7.When was the survey conducted? Was it just after or before some event that might have influenced opinion?

What you should know for Test 1

Vocabulary:

1.population 20. negative response error

2.sample 21. voluntary response error

3.inferential statistics 22. leading the question

4.descriptive statistics 23. self selected sample

5.qualitative variable 24. self serving

6.quantitative variable 25. source

7.random 26. grouped frequency distribution

8.representative 27. lurking variable

9.stratified 28. histogram

10.systematic 29. ogive

11.cluster 30. stem and leaf

12.convenience 31. graph scale

13.frequency 32. ungrouped frequency distribution

14.relative frequency 33. skewed right or positively skewed

15.cumulative frequency 34. skewed left or negatively skewed

16.cumulative relative frequency 35. normal or bell shaped

17.class limits 36. uniform

18.class boundaries 37. irregular distribution

19.class midpoints 38. proportionally stratified

What you should be able to do:

1.Identify the population and sample from a survey, article, etc.

2.Identify problems with statistics and/or graphs.

3.Identify sampling techniques.

4.Identify