Attitude Survey
The author of this report has been asked to create the parameters and facets of an attitude survey. Given that 2016 is an election year, it would seem easy to use that as the springboard for an attitude survey about the candidates. Since the current President is term limited, there are primaries in both major parties and thus attitude surveys can be made about the prospective candidates on both sides. On the Democrat side, the author of this report will focus on Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. On the Republican side, the author will focus on the three best finishers at the recent Iowa caucus, those being Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Macro Rubio (Fox News, 2016). While there is a usual ebb and flow when it comes to election season, the current election cycle is a powder keg and then some and thus the attitudes of the people surveyed would be very important to gather and review.
Analysis
As far as the population to use for an attitude survey, an area that is populated densely enough with both Republicans and Democrats would be ideal. For example, most of Texas is rather conservative but Austin is fairly liberal. Urban areas in particular are typically high-Democrat while suburbia is mixed to Republican (Kron, 2012). The sample would be random and would be in a public area. It would be made clear up front that all responses will be anonymous and that only the political party affiliation (if any), age,
It would be important to keep it random and not pre-select people (like the people in the author's class) because that would be a convenience sample and would not be truly random picks from the culture and
society of the area.
Most of the questions in the attitude survey would be simple answers. For example, each respondent will be asked about their general stance on major issues such as
abortion, gun control and ownership, military action/national defense,
terrorism and social welfare programs. The respondents will be grouped initially based on whether they are Republican, Democrat or Independent/Third Party. The other demographics mentioned before will be collected so that further
analysis and detail can be rendered.
The one question that will be far from canned in terms of responses is why they support the candidate that they purport to want elected. For example, if someone picks Donald Trump, the person…
