Ideas for Design a Poll Assignment

This blog post is my brainstorming for the first portfolio assignment of designing a poll. Any comments would be helpful on creation for this first assignment :)

Overview
While I had the broad topic of Education for this assignment, I decided that I needed to select one topic or polling. For this poll, I have chosen to stick to public opinion on kindergarten to 12th grade schooling in the United States. I liked the ideas found in the last poll I posted in my blog. I would like to test public opinion on the conditions found in primary and secondary schools across the United States. While No Child Left Behind was under public scrutiny in the early 2000s, I would like to ask questions pertaining to find if the public feels that its changes to the education system were effective or unnecessary.

Sampling
For this survey, I would like to target parents, students and teachers and their varying opinions. To get an adequate number of teachers, I will try to survey using contact information from a professional organization or a list from those who subscribe to an education magazine. While I would like to obtain survey results from students, I think this may be difficult. If poll is administrated at school, most likely parental consent would be needed. I am not sure how feasible it would be to obtain these results. I believe that I would be able to capture parents opinion using phone interviews.

Nonattitudes and Insincerity
In my poll, I will be trying to focus on the audiences that are already involved in the education system. I feel that by targeting select public, it will cut down on the amount of nonattitudes. I also plan on including “no opinion” options. The only problem I see arising is people wanting the best for children. I feel that this will result in people finding more issues than really exist.

Questionnaire Design
I will begin with demographic questions. I will be including questions on what group they belong to (teacher, parent, student, other). I will also be including whether they are at a public school or private school. There might be a difference in the problems faced by the type of school. I will also ask if they feel the kindergarten through 12 schools need improvement. In my questions, I will include a “no opinion” response. I will give multiple choice and open ended.

Poll Administration
I plan on utilizing phone interviews to adults. If I was able to interview students, I would use an actual interviewer. However, I feel that students might not open up to a stranger.

Data Analysis and Reporting
I feel that these results should be reported in a place that would affect policy implementation. By reaching school administration and decision makers, I feel that the actual things that need to be changed can be.

This is the beginning ideas on my poll design…more to come!