A friend sent us a copy of an article from the Internet about “interviewer falsification in surveys.” The correctness, and even probity, of a survey is the way it’s done because there are a lot of areas where it could be forged according to what the poll takers want.
How is data collection actually done?
In the language of the computer, it’s “Garbage in, garbage out.”
American humorist and “Huckleberry Finn” author Mark Twain is quoted to have said that there are three kinds of lies: “Lies, damn lies, and statistics.”
No, it’s not intentional lies, not in respondents. But a few things would push any respondent to answer precisely what the pollsters want. A survey is a probable thing, nothing final. It’s the word on the milk you like to buy or the candidate you would vote for.
Listen to an interview for data gathering. A question, then the interviewer would hesitate, murmuring, “I think so….” But it’s time for the interviewer to get a bus for the ride home from this southern town. She quickly asks, “Yes or no?” And the respondent says, “Yes!”
Perhaps if more people think twice about poll taking, it would clear the smoke, and a man’s world would be a fairer view, not shaped by what others are said to be thinking in surveys.
Poll taking is an endeavor that could have faults, intentional or otherwise. I don’t have to be in the opinion poll business to be capable of reflecting on it in some way, somehow.
One simple realization could make you think twice---that a respondent would be truer to himself, thus truthful, in a survey collecting data through the mail than during a personal interview. A respondent has time to think honestly, he’s not rushed into conclusions that may not be his own. Then, also, he’s not pressed into pleasing the interviewer.
Or the way a question is asked can influence the answer.
And how are the interviewers chosen? The comical example given by an article on the Internet regarding lies in survey results is a poll on gun control, perhaps done by a gun manufacturer, distributing questionnaires among the guys in a rifle show.
Then how are the questions formed? A Manila Standard Today news item, on what are seen as survey “leading” questions, revealed a copy of a survey questionnaire. The participants are asked to check “agree”, “disagree” or “undecided” to questions such as “The husband of PGMA, First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo, steals from the coffers of the country.”
In the local front, how about if a question goes this way? “Do you believe we should kill each other to defend the name of a society which has Greek letters in it?” This would be for an opinion survey on fraternities.
The code of ethics of pollsters could also affect survey results. There is confidentiality in the survey responses, only numbers linking to questionnaires, no names. The names and addresses of respondents should never be given out to anyone.
So, who’s to say how the questions were formed, how they were uttered, what the interviewer reported as final?
A more incisive survey repeats the same questions in different forms and wordings, which would show a respondent’s true opinion as he contradicts or affirms himself unknowingly.
Cultural history professor and Pulitzer winner author Louis Menand
wrote in The New Yorker magazine, "When pollsters ask people for their opinion about an issue, people generally feel obliged to have one. Their answer is duly recorded, and it becomes a datum in a report on ‘public opinion’. "
But I’m confident there are pollsters effective in recording and assessing opinions. If not, pass the crystal ball, please.
