Pollies polling

Focus Questions

  1. Discuss the BtN story with another student.
  2. What is an opinion poll?
  3. How are they used in politics?
  4. Explain how poll results can be affected when something bad happens to a political party.
  5. Approximately how many people participate in a national poll?
  6. How does that compare with the total population of Australia?
  7. Complete the following sentence. `The more people that are asked...’
  8. Give some examples of how opinion polls are used?
  9. What do you understand more clearly since watching the BtN story?
  10. Have you ever participated in a poll? Explain your answer.

Opinion polls

Opinion polls are held to find out what people think about a particular issue. Students will be conducting their own opinion poll about an issue of their choice. It could be a school based issue or one that affects the wider community.

Discuss with students:

·  What do they know about opinion polls?

·  Who uses opinion polls (media, political parties, market research companies)

·  Have they participated in a poll? If so, who was conducting the poll and what was the issue?

·  How are the results of polls used?

·  How are the results affected by sample group being polled? For example, how would results about whether homework should be banned be different if only students in the school were polled?

Working in groups, students will decide on an issue that they want the public’s opinion on. They will need to decide on who their sample group will be and how many people will be polled. What method they will use to conduct the poll? (Face to face interviews or written responses) Some possible questions to poll people on include:

Should kids under 14-years-old be allowed to have a mobile phone?

Should junk food ads be banned on kids’ TV?

Is Kevin Rudd a good Prime Minister?

Should we encourage more recycling at our school?

Ask students to graph the opinion poll results and display in the classroom. Students can reflect on how reliable they think the results were. What would they do differently next time?

Further investigation

How does Behind the News use polls? Go to the BtN website http://abc.net.au/btn/vote/total.htm and look at past poll questions and results. Discuss in small groups why you think BtN includes an online poll question on the website?

8 Related Research Links
ABC News – Tasmania headed for hung Parliament: poll
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/15/2845771.htm

ABC The Drum – Liberals yet to grasp Labor’s loosened power grip
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/18/2849550.htm

ABC Behind the News – Online Poll results
http://abc.net.au/btn/vote/total.htm

CNN Student News One-Sheet – Political Polls
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/studentnews/05/02/one.sheet.polling/index.html

Kids.net.au website – Opinion polls
http://dictionary.kids.net.au/word/opinion_poll

© ABC 2010