Directions: Download and complete the assignment sheet below. Once you have your topics and questions chosen, you may download and print out the public opinion poll worksheet. Be sure to fill your questions in the question boxes on the left. Make copies of this sheet and hand it out to your friends and family. You may use the information organizer found on the last page of the assignment document to keep track of your poll results. Be sure to look at the rubric to make sure you are completing the project correctly. Once you have gathered your public poll results, fill in the assignment worksheet and submit to your teacher.
1) Choose three controversial topics for a public opinion poll. For example, you may choose to ask questions about legalization of marijuana, raising the driving age to 18, flag burning, gun control, welfare, assisted suicide, cloning, genetic engineering of either plants or animals, animal testing, environmental issues, or any other controversial topic that interests you. You may want to include a blend of national and local issues in your poll.
2) Write the questions you are going to ask. Many statements are emotionally based, so you must word your questions carefully. The wording of a question can influence the outcome of a poll. For example, don’t ask, “Don’t you agree that animal testing is necessary for medical progress?” or, “Don’t you think that animal testing is an evil act which should be outlawed?” Ask instead, “In general, are you for or against the idea of animal testing?” or “Are you for or against raising the driving age to 18?” Try to phrase your questions in as neutral a manner as possible.
This is not the time for discussion about these issues. You are asking straightforward questions that should be answered by “for” or “against.” The purpose of the poll is simply to get a type of vote on what people think about the issues you have chosen.
3) Poll fifteen to twenty different people. Try to ask as wide a variety of people as possible: women, men, old people, young people, religious people, non-religious people, professional and non-professional people, wealthy people, poor people, whites, blacks, Hispanics, and anyone else you can find. Asking people in different neighborhoods will help you get a wider variety of responses.
Similar groups of people are likely to have common views on certain issues, so it is important to have many groups represented. If you ask a question about abortion at a church supper, for example, you may get very different responses than if you asked it at the park. If you ask about gun control at a lake where avid outdoors people are fishing and boating, you may get a higher percentage of people who are also hunters and use guns. Their opinions about gun control are likely to be quite different from the people at the local yoga center. This is why you need to ask many different kinds of people. Try to ask people in a place where most people go regularly, such as the grocery store.
Try to get people to take one side or the other, and not to straddle the middle. If you get neutral answers such as, “I’m not sure how I feel,” or “Well, it depends on the exact circumstances,” you will also have to create an “undecided” category.
4) Carefully record their answers and compile a chart.
5) Calculate the percentage of people who were in favor of each issue and those who were opposed to each issue.
6) What did you learn about the views of different people about the same issue? Were you surprised by any of the responses? Did you gain any new perspectives on the issues you polled others about?
