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Yes Prime Minister, questionnaire design matters
- tgv 3y agoI'm afraid they wasted their sample. It's a large company, so it's probably filler for them, but still. If they had asked the same question at the end, the effect would have been clearer (assuming no big differences in audience, because that really happens). Now you can ascribe the effect to e.g. people misreading the "oppose" question.
- milliams 3y agoI had a similar thought. They could otherwise have asked the two end questions from a cohort without the lead-up to get the baseline.
- fweimer 3y agoThe questions were flipped in the original TV programme.
- garaetjjte 3y agoI think it is not representative anyway because of how famous the sketch was.
- Throw73747 3y ago[flagged]
- milliams 3y agoInteresting, but not really relevant to the point of the article.
- Throw73747 3y agoIt is very relevant, the whole questionare is about "National Service". They are tricking people into supporting slavery! > National service is the system of compulsory or voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term national service comes from the United Kingdom's National Service Act 1939.
- milliams 3y agoNo they're not. They demonstrating how unethical surveys can, if portrayed improperly can appear to show different results. There is a difference between fiction and reality.
- Throw73747 3y ago[flagged]
- kitd 3y agoYou're missing the whole point of the post. The merits of National Service are not under debate and are thus irrelevant.
- Throw73747 3y ago[flagged]
- PoignardAzur 3y ago> They are tricking people into supporting slavery! I'm pretty sure you're trying to caricature a type of people, but when you're this blatant about it you basically become a caricature of yourself.
- Throw73747 3y agoI live in Prague, had gf from Ukraine, know like 5 men who escaped just before border closed, a few guys from my company were conscripted, I know 3 men who died... I can ensure you this is not some sort of parody
- londons_explore 3y agoWar after war shows us that plenty of people die for their country, usually in return for pay and freedom from prison...
- Throw73747 3y agoYes, like become "voluntary" slave, or we put you into prison! US still requires men to sign up for selective service, or else they will not even get a driving licence!
- xboxnolifes 3y agoIt's not even fake voluntary. It's legally required, with punishment for not.
- Throw73747 3y agoTechnically it is voluntary. You do not have to sign it, but in most states you get criminal record for not signing it. Gov needs it to be "voluntary", or else they could be sued for compensations. If there is a war, do not sign it!
- londons_explore 3y ago> Gov needs it to be "voluntary", or else they could be sued for compensations. Gov makes the law. They could just as easily make a law saying "no compensation shall ever be payable from anything todo with National Service"
- Throw73747 3y agoUS has the constitution. Gov does not make "the law", it is not UK!
- xboxnolifes 3y agoIt's not really voluntary if it goes on a criminal record. If a felony with punishment of up to $250,000 in fines and/or 5 years imprisonment is "voluntary", then there sure are a lot of "voluntary" laws.
- fl7305 3y agoIt is a well agreed upon concept that the people living in a society can be forced to take part in the defense of it. This is not very different from being forced to pay taxes.
- Throw73747 3y ago[flagged]
- fl7305 3y agoI live in Sweden with a strong history of conscription. I've never seen any serious opposition to conscription on ethical grounds. My impression is that it is the same in the other Nordic countries? I'd be surprised if there was a "huge opposition" in Switzerland or Israel, two other countries with a strong history of conscription. I also haven't seen any international human rights law against conscription?
- Throw73747 3y ago> I'd be surprised if there was a "huge opposition" in Switzerland or Israel That is reason why women got voting rights in 1970 in Switzerland, they were worried about conscription. Israel has a huge orthodox religious community that opposes conscription. Army is just for liberal idiots!
- fl7305 3y ago> That is reason why women got voting rights in 1970 in Switzerland, they were worried about conscription. Not sure how that translates into "a huge opposition to conscription on ethical grounds"? > Israel has a huge orthodox religious community that opposes conscription They're 13%, is that right? Is 13% "huge"? And do they oppose it for everyone on ethical grounds? Or just for themselves, while they'll happily let the rest take care of the national defense using conscription?
- 3y ago
- dr_kiszonka 3y agoIf, like me, you can't read the questions in the results table, here is a legible version: https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/jZ5sT/full.png https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/jZ5sT/full.png
- changoplatanero 3y agoWait there is barely any difference in the response to the last question in both surveys!
- milliams 3y agoThis is a problem with the way the data is presented and the questions asked, but there's a 10 point swing between "not opposed" and "in favour", and likewise between "not in favour" and "opposed".
- londons_explore 3y agoThere is a 15% difference, and that takes the overall results past the critical midway position that matters in a referendum.
- kwertyoowiyop 3y agoThis show and its predecessor “Yes Minister” are excellent. And as we see, just as relevant today as ever.
- mrtksn 3y agoI wonder if people in politics or civil service feel the same about this show as the people in tech feel about Silicon Valley series. These series are also scary because they somehow managed to remain relevant. Maybe the way the world works hasn't changed that much after all.
- LaundroMat 3y agoUs humans make the (human) world work and we haven't changed a lot in a very long time indeed.
- tomatocracy 3y agoIf you like the series then this article[0] which was published in the LRB early in its run is well worth a read - it gives you a good idea of how the series came about and why it feels very closely observed. Reportedly many politicians at the time, including Margaret Thatcher, felt it to be very closely observed. But the really clever thing about the writing is that you never know which party Jim Hacker is a member of and it is equally believable regardless of which one - it's so remarkable that it's a series about politics which manages to be really quite apolitical in that sense. 0. https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v02/n10/antony-jay/informed-sources https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v02/n10/antony-jay/informed-...
- arp242 3y agoAnd/or people have started behaving according to the standards set in the show because they assume that everyone is that cynical. This is kind of what worries be about these extremely cynical satires and depictions. On the other hand, it's not like politics is better in the US which had The West Wing, which is very aspirational and not cynical at all so idk...
- 3y ago
- matt3210 3y agoThis is a feature not a bug in questionnaire campaigns.
- arp242 3y agoI don't agree with the conclusion; 3% difference is basically within the error margins for these types of things. I typically assume a ~5% error margin, which is nice round number I just pulled out of my ass, but it seems roughly accurate.
- cool_dude85 3y agoRe-read the question. The first one is 45-favor, 38-oppose, the second one is 48-oppose, 34-favor.
- IshKebab 3y agoNo it isn't. The first one is 45-favour, 38 don't favour. That's a totally different thing. This proves the idea that you can get a result that points the way you want it to. But it doesn't quite prove that the leading questions have any effect. To do that they would need to ask 2 more sets of questions with the "oppose"/"support" questions inverted. Otherwise the effect could just be due to the different wording of the final question.
- quatrefoil 3y agoYou're misreading the answers. In sample A, 45% are in favor of reintroducing National Service and (38% oppose it). In sample B, the phrasing is reversed, meaning that 34% are in favor (and 48% oppose it). So, the difference is 11 percentage points.
- loudandskittish 3y ago> "First of all, to be clear, we would never ask questions on such a topic in this way." I love how they worded that. Having once worked for Ipsos, they DEFINITELY do it, but the sentence is correct, I don't recall any instances of it being done "on such a topic."
- toyg 3y agoThe art of pollsters is to produce results reflecting the hopes of whoever commissioned them, but with just enough even-handedness to look not-obviously-prepackaged.
- xyzelement 3y agoI had a survey construction class during my MBA. This is mainly obvious stuff, but indeed should be studied and practiced because people screw this up all the time. Assuming your goal is to find out what people think (vs, have the survey tell you what you want it to tell you) - you have to realize that most people plop down their at-the-moment emotional state as the survey response, and that state is most recently influenced by the survey itself. Eg, if I asked you "should Israel dismantle the Hamas terrorist organization responsible for the 10/7/2023 murder of 1500 people" - most people would say "yes" because the words "dismantle the terrorist organization" resonate with most people. If I asked them "do you support a ceasefire in Gaza" - most people would also say yes, because the word ceasefire would resonate with them. Obviously these would be contradictory results. What this survey wouldn't tell you is how many people actually think about this topic and which way they lean. A better designed survey would be something like this: Question 1: How aware are you of the current conflict in Gaza (1-5) Question 2: In your own words, how would you describe the conflict? Question 3: If 1 is "Ceasefire at all costs" and 10 is "eliminate terrorists at all costs", where would you place your opinion? Having these 3 datapoints would enable you to filter by those who actually have an opinion (or, find out what percentage has an opinion), use question 2 to validate that and/or gain new insights and use 3 to identify how strongly people lean one way or another.
- Doxin 3y agoDo note that your two example questions aren't quite as diametrically opposed as you make it out to be. You can be in favor of both and still be consistent. How you would dismantle Hamas while having a cease fire in place is left as an exercise to the reader.
- PoignardAzur 3y agoNot only that, but "do people consider these options to be mutually incompatible" is itself interesting information. I wouldn't expect the average survey to handle it too well, though.