Thanks to Wes and Gail about the posts on the crane "poll." But I think it's appropriate to voice a word of caution about what these numbers represent.
As a survey methodologist and market research consultant, I can tell you that this is not a scientific survey taken with a probability sample of some larger population. It is an online reader involvement tool for the web site. As such, it serves its purpose pretty well: It gets readers involved in the web site and creates interesting "findings." But the results are representative only of those who have the time and inclination to participate. You can test it yourself like I did. Take the poll. You can even vote several times, if you're clever enough, and drive the change in the percentages. As one of my survey research colleagues says, it's only cheaply done "scream" research, and should not be taken seriously. In fact, I probably will save the web site and use it as an example of how NOT to do a scientific survey when I teach my survey methodology class again. I'm sure that most of us on the list know at some level the things I mentioned above. But that being said, we should be cautious. These types of polls sometimes creep out to the web and get repeated often enough without qualification that they are taken as gospel. Pretty soon those who have an ax to grind or an ox to gore begin using the "findings" as an argument for or against someone's policy position. That's the real harm in these types of surveys. If you want to contact me about this, please reply off the list so we don't clutter up e-mail boxes too much. Good birding (and good research) to all! Rob Daves South Minneapolis ________________________________ From: Wes Bailey <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Mon, July 26, 2010 8:34:50 AM Subject: Re: [mou-net] hunting of cranes As of 08:32 am poll now showing 51% in favor, 53% opposed to sandhill crane hunt. Wes Bailey Grand Rapids, MN On Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 7:19 AM, Gail Wieberdink <[email protected]> wrote: > Here is a link to a poll regarding the hunting of sandhill cranes. > > > http://outdoornews.com/minnesota/ > > > Right now the poll is showing many in favor. > > > Gail > > > > > ---- > Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net > Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html > ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
