The issue: In Herbert Asher’s book, Polling and the Public, he talks about different types of sampling techniques and how they are used when generating a sample or a poll.
Major strength: Ashes major strength in this chapter is when he talks about response rates and all the new ways they are coming up with to get people to respond to polls. I found it interesting that people are more likely to contribute to a mail in poll then they are to a telephone poll. As humans we have it ingrained in us that when you answer the phone and it is a polltaker or telemarketer our attitude immediately changes and we either hang-up immediately or yell at them for calling. With mail in polls we are able to do the poll on our own time and not immediately when someone calls. I believe this section really showed us how much time and effort goes into getting people to respond to polls. I had never realized the efforts and the studies that are done just to see how they can increase the response rate on polls. I really felt this section was very strong and eye opening.
Major weakness: The major weakness of this chapter is when they talk about telephone polling. I believe this is a stretch because they talk about the different dynamics that they can assume when someone has an unlisted number. He states that the numbers he got came from a 1996 study. Well after 1996 the cell phone came into play and categorizing people in this way became skewed data. I wish he had found a study that was done closer to the time of publication to this book and shown us what category unlisted numbers fall into now. This whole section shows us how telephone polling used to be done but it does not show us how it is now. I wish he would of gone into more detail about telephone poling in the twenty first century as opposed to just giving us studies done nine years before the book was printed.
Underlying assumption: The underlying assumption of sampling techniques is that they are always changing. With the introduction of the cellular phones, telephone polling was now not as accurate as it was before because most people have cell phones instead of landlines. They also cannot generalize the area that the phone number is coming from now since our cell phone numbers are not primarily based on the area we live in but by whom our provider is. Polling companies have had to research ways to get people to respond to polls now that there are so many ways for us to avoid being polled and for the data to be wrong. It is important for companies to get responses to these polls but it is growing so much harder for them based on our advancing society.
Provocative questions: Why are sampling techniques so important today? Since the invention of the cell phone and other things that cause data to be skewed, can polls really still be called accurate?
Why are humans more likely to be okay with a poll if it is presented to them on urgent paper or by email then they are when the polling people call and then can just take the poll right then?