Tina Che

Professor Schulz
Phil 025
4 July 2014

Analyzing Inductive Arguments: Public Opinion Polls
Ive selected a poll from Gallup.com and one from CNN.com. The one from Gallup is titled
Americans Preference for Gender of Boss from 2013 (Newport and Wilke). The poll from CNN is
titled Will Obama be a better president in second term? from 2012 (Polling Center). The poll that Ive
chosen from Gallup is stronger than the one from CNN because of the sample size and the clarity of the
question asked.
For Gallups poll from the annual Gallup Work and Education Survey. The property in question
is which gender of boss do you prefer. Specifically the question was Suppose you were taking a new
job and had your choice of a boss. Would you prefer to work for a man or a woman? (Newport and
Wilke). The answers were Prefer male boss, Prefer female boss, and No preference (a volunteer
response). The respondents were given the choice of two genders but some answered that they had no
preference which wasnt one of the answer. The sample size was 2,059 adults (Newport and Wilke). It
is large enough to avoid hastiness since 1,000 is the average size of any reputable source (Moore and
Parker 354). The people in the survey are adults aged 18 and older who are living in all 50 states.
(Newport and Wilke). This is random and could represent all Americans since they are not just
interviewing people from one state or a few states. The survey includes people who are employed or
unemployed and working full or part time regardless of working history (Newport and Wilke).This
make sense because the poll is asking Americans overall, not just working Americans. The methodology
for this polls sample is random phone interviews. These phone interviews include landline phones or cell
phones (Newport and Wilke). Not everyone owns a cell phone or a landline phone so its best to
include both in a poll to represent everyone as best as they could. The interviews are also conducted in
Spanish if the one being interviewed speaks Spanish primarily (Newport and Wilke). This allows more
representativeness taking in to mind that not all Americans are able to speak English. The phone
numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods to randomize the sample. For landline phone
interviews, they select the family member who had the most recent birthday as the respondent (Newport
and Wilke). I do not see any bias since representativeness is achieved. The target population is adults
aged 18 and older. I would assign a 9 to this poll in term of strength. I see that the sample is large
enough and random. This survey has a 95% confidence level with a 3% sampling error (Newport and
Wilke). The poll includes the breakdown of gender, education level, age, party, and current boss for
further analysis (Newport and Wilke).
The second poll that Ive picked is from CNN during the 2012 election. The question asked of
the sample population is Will Obama be a better president in second term? The answers the
participants were provided with were Better, About the same, Worse, or No Opinion (Polling
Center).The poll is conducted by ORC International. The sample size is 620 adult Americans which is
not large enough to avoid hastiness (Polling Center). The people included in the poll are adults aged 18
and up (Telephone CARAVAN Consumer Omnibus). The sample is randomly selected by phone
interviews. This includes both landline and cell phone users. They also use a random-digit-dial method
to randomize the sample. The sample includes half amount of male, and half amount of female
(Telephone CARAVAN Consumer Omnibus). There is hastiness in this poll since the sample size is
620 adult Americans with an error margin of 4% (Polling Center). There is also Vague Generalities, a
general statement too vague to be meaningful for practical purposes (Moore and Parker 377). I think it
very much applies to the question asked in this survey: Will Obama be a better president in second
term?. What do CNN mean by a better president? Better in what way? Everyone has different
opinions about what a presidents responsibilities should be. One could say Obama will be better about
one thing, while another say Obama will be better at another thing. The poll is not asking a specific
enough question regarding Obamas second term. The target population is adults 18 and older. I would
assign this poll a 3 because the sample size is not large enough to representative Americans. People may
also view this survey as to supporting their view on Obama since the question is too vague. Its open to
anyones interpretation of the data since the question wasnt specific enough about any one thing. Its
merely asking if Obama will be better in the second term. Everyone has different view of better,
everyone have a low or high expectation to begin with. Its just not specific to learn anything from this
poll.
Both polls from Gallup and CNN use the random-digit-dial method to gather their random
sample. I believe this is a really good method because its not self select unlike online polls or mail in
polls. They also weight in the diversity of the sample to represent the diversity of the population. I
wasnt able to find any poll that is conducted online that also publish their methodology. The poll from
Gallup is stronger than CNN because their question was not vague at all with no bias. The poll from
CNN is weak because although they did use a method that gathered a random sample, the sample was
not large enough to represent the U.S. population. Another reason for the weakness is that CNN asked
a vague question. They asked how Obama will do in the future overall. Not everyone will think of the
same thing when Obama comes to mind. Not everyone will base their opinion on one specific subject.
The ones that look at the result will also conclude whatever they want to based on their own opinion.


Works Cited
Moore, Brooke Noel., and Richard Parker. "Chapter 10 Thinking Critically About Inductive
Reasoning." Critical Thinking. 10th ed. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2012. 349-88. Print.
Newport, Frank, and Joy Wilke. "Americans Still Prefer a Male Boss." Gallup Economy. Gallup, 11
Nov. 2013. Web. 05 July 2014.
"Polling Center: CNN Poll: Will Obama Be a Better President in Second Term?"CNN. Cable News
Network, n.d. Web. 05 July 2014.
"Telephone CARAVAN Consumer Omnibus." (n.d.): n. pag. ORC International. ORC
International. Web. 5 July 2014.