School Me Saturday- Poll me once?

In today’s special edition of school me Saturday I want to talk about polls.

Not poll numbers.

But poll questions.

Last semester one of my classes was about measurement. How to take it, and, more importantly, how to make sure the tools and questions were of quality.

Because there are such things as validity and reliability.

For this school me Saturday we are going to take validity: does the question really ask what you think it is asking.

The loose definition of validity is how well the question reflects a true finding among those asked. They use this to correlate with those outside of the poll.

The loose definition of reliability is how well the poll question reflects what can be replicated with another person taking the poll.

What prompted this topic was the ONE time I participated in a poll about this 2024 general election and how poorly written the questions were.

They asked me general questions about who I anticipated voting for and my general feeling about the election.

And then, after they found out I was not playing about voting straight party Democrat ticket, they threw some BS information out about the Democratic candidate and asked if I was still going to vote for them. When I said that I would rather vote for the Democrat, they pushed me, hard. I stated that bodily autonomy was so important to me that I didn’t care what crap they bought up about the candidate.

And they hung up on me.

Frankly, the entire encounter left me with such a bad taste in my mouth that I’ve declined all calls since.

It has been a LONG time since I was in journalism class but even I can spot when they are leading the interviewee the answer in the way that they wanted me to answer.

Obviously, they don’t know me.

The takeaway is that if you do answer the phone and talk to a pollster be honest. But also pay attention to their questions and how they are given.

And make sure that you get the name of the company taking the poll. A lot can be figured out by a quick Google.

If you do the quick Google, consider if you even want to talk to the pollster.

If you do talk to them pay very close attention to the questions and how they make you feel.

Before you ask, I do believe in polling.

Just not in answering my phone.