Gallup Poll Worksheet

Gallup Poll Activity Read and respond.

1. List three reasons Americans contact the Gallup Organization.

2. What did a recent "poll on polls" reveal about how believable people think polls are?

3. What is the fundamental goal of a survey?

4. What is equal probability of selection?

5. Why does Gallup try to reach people at home?

6. How were the earliest polls conducted? When did this take place?

7. How accurate were the presidential elections between 1936 and 1984?

8. How did the Gallup polls change in 1986? Why?

9. What is the first step in the Gallup process? Explain in detail.

10. What is Gallup's target audience? Who is NOT included?

11. What is the next step in the Gallup process? Explain in detail.

12. Why is it important to go through this "complicated" procedure?

13. How many interviews does it take to provide an adequate cross-section of Americans?

14. What is more important that the actual number of people which need to be interviewed for a given sample?

15. How big does a survey sample have to be before there are fewer and fewer accuracy gains coming from increasing the sample size? How big is the Gallup sample size?

16. What is the "margin of error"?

17. What does Gallup do if there is no answer or the phone is busy? Why?

18. What does Gallup do once the household has been reached by phone? Why?

19. How does Gallup ask people who they are going to vote for in an election?

20. What advantage does Gallup have in asking questions about key issues?

21. How does Gallup ask people about presidential job approval?

22. What is a split sample technique?

23. How are results tabulated?

24. What are primary standard caveats observed when interpreting poll results?

25. What is the key concept a person should bear in mind when analyzing poll data?

Additional information can be found at http://www.gallup.com/poll/101872/how-does-gallup-polling-work.aspx. Click on “How are polls conducted?”