Opinion Polling, Careers in

views updated

OPINION POLLING, CAREERS IN

Public opinion research is one of the fasting growing and most diversified career opportunities available. It provides opportunities for work in government agencies, university settings, in political campaigns, and in the business world. Because the work involves a range of possible skills, the field attracts people who are interested in designing studies, managing polls in the field, conducting statistical analyses of data, or working with clients to implement policy or business decisions based on the data analysis.

Public opinion polling takes a number of forms. People who work for news organizations, for example, are interested in measuring opinion about current events or political figures. The most visible form of this work is the preelection polls conducted in conjunction with political campaigns or the exit poll interviews that are collected on the day of an election that are used to estimate the outcomes of elections. People who work for commercial firms are often interested in the attitudes and behavior of consumers with the intent of helping companies understand how to increase their market share or to improve their products. People who work for the government are interested in tracking important demographic trends or the use of government programs and services. Academic pollsters often study such basic research questions as how attitudes are formed and crystallized, how durable they are, and how opinions affect behavior.

Conducting a poll involves a number of steps, and different skills and training are required for each. Many of the people who rely on polling data for making decisions are not well trained themselves in data collection and analysis, so one of the most important needs is for people who can talk to potential users of public opinion data to determine what their needs are. They can help the potential users think about such questions as what the appropriate population of interest is, what questions should be asked, and what shape the analysis should take in order to provide an answer to the original questions. Most polls involve samples of individuals drawn from the population of interest, and sampling is a special skill that is quite different from the ability to write good questions for a poll. Specialists in writing questionnaires are interested in producing unbiased data that are unaffected by the wording of a particular question or by the order in which the questions are asked. People who analyze polling data have a set of statistical skills that are quite different from samplers or questionnaire designers. Most polling is done by telephone, although the use of the Internet for conducting surveys is increasing.

Learning to manage studies while data collection is underway is another important skill that is in demand. The production of a survey, from the design of the sample to writing a questionnaire to collecting data to analyzing them, involves the coordination of staff and facilities. There have to be enough interviewers available to contact potential respondents on the expected days and nights, for example. Managing data collection and analysis on a timely and cost-effective basis is a very important responsibility.

The appropriate training for a career in public opinion polling can be obtained through a number of college disciplines that result in a B.A. degree. Public opinion research is necessarily a quantitative profession, so a person should have some training in statistical methods and feel comfortable with data. People who are interested in becoming survey methodologists who specialize in sampling or data analysis should consider a concentration in statistics, although this path can usually be pursued in conjunction with a substantive specialty in a field such as political science, psychology, or sociology. Survey research training can increasingly be found in programs in communication studies or in interdepartmental programs in the social sciences. For individuals interested in market research, undergraduate training in business would be good background. Most of this undergraduate training would expose a student to an introduction to methodology but concentrate on data analysis. A well-trained undergraduate should understand the steps in the survey process and how to analyze the resulting data. They would be well trained to be a consumer of polling data and to write research reports, but they might not know how to produce data.

There are a growing number of graduate programs that offer an M.A. degree in survey research or public opinion research, and this advanced training can lead to starting positions that have more responsibility and higher salaries. In a graduate program, students learn more about the methodological skills necessary to produce public opinion polling data. In an M.A. program in survey research, students typically take courses in sampling, questionnaire design, and data analysis, as well as in survey management. Most programs involve some kind of practicum course in which the students go through all of the steps in the process, including interviewing. By the time the students finish this course, they are familiar with all of the steps involved in the process.

People in the polling business often belong to one of a number of professional organizations that provide them with the opportunity to meet other people in the field and to network about job placements. The American Association for Public Opinion Research is an organization that publishes a career brochure and provides a job placement service at their annual conference. There is a Survey Methods Section of the American Statistical Association that produces a series of brochures titled What Is a Survey? that describe how surveys are planned and conducted. Also, the Council for Marketing and Opinion Research maintains an Internet website to inform members of the public about the research process, their role in it, and the various types of misuses and abuses of the research process that they may encounter