Monday, December 7, 2015

I Just Got Gallup Polled.

I just got Gallup polled.  Over the phone. The lady was quite nice and quite patient.  Some of the questions were- limiting, and I was unable to provide a correct or at least an accurate answer that I considered truthful.  But maybe my thinking is too literal.  Anyway.  Their education question wasn't easy, as I have a lot of college, not some, though no degree, not even an Associate's.  Also, they didn't ask what my job was, but maybe the sample wasn't large enough for that to be useful. Hmm- No they could have grouped occupations so the statistics could be meaningful.  By economic sector, say.  There's like 8 or 10, so each would have had on average about 170 people out of a sample of about 1500, which I believe is typical for these kinds of polls. Or if I was retired, or disabled.  (According to the article linked below, they take 1000 samples per day. 

No questions on hobbies, which I think could also be grouped into a few useful categories.  They asked an interesting question- something about whether I had a leader in my life who helped me ah, feel good about things?  Something about that.  I told her no.  Lots of questions about my health.  I don't actually have diabetes, but I am pre-diabetic. How to answer that? Same with my blood pressure, for which I receive  minimal treatment.  I do have other health problems, but they are mostly pretty trivial. I won't go into them, here.  An I a Christian?  I value Christ's contribution to humanity, in general, and to society and theology in particular, but I don't obsess about it.  That I consider inappropriate.  Even un-Christian. Questions about depression, but not other mental conditions, of which I have one.

Some redundancy, but that may be for 'truth checking,' on which I may not have done well.

She did ask my opinion about the economy.  Is it good or poor?(Poor.)  Is it getting better?(No.)  I did say I thought my situation was going to get better.  Didn't ask where I got my news, (very little mainstream, mostly off the Web,) or whether I identify as a Republican or Democrat or neither, liberal or conservative.

They asked a lot of questions.  I think, by asking a few more and by further partitioning the domain of their sample space, they could have gotten a lot more information.  

For the interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallup_%28company%29

Oops.  I got Gallup polled last night, but I forgot to publish this then.

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