GOVT 317: Cornell Student Survey

It's an election year, potentially a pivotal one. As an option for the first part of the course you may choose to help conduct a pre-election opinion survey of the Cornell University student population. The aim of the survey is to find out what students think about the political, social and economic issues relevant to the upcoming national elections, as well as their voting intentions. With luck (and your hard work), the survey will reveal what Cornell students think about the election campaigns, and perhaps offer a basis for comparing students' views with larger local and national public opinion results. If everything comes together we will try to publish one or more pre-election articles in local news media (e.g., the Cornell Daily Sun). That would be up to you.

Work on the survey will be done during meetings of a special section of the course. Members of the survey section will participate in the entire survey process, from start to finish. The section will focus on learning and performing the core functions required for a successful survey, including sampling, survey questionnaire design, interviewing, and data analysis.

1. Sampling theory is the foundation upon which the reliability of a survey's results are built. It would be impractical to interview all students at Cornell, therefore a selection procedure for interviews must be chosen. Key issues which will be addressed are:
   • Selecting a sampling method.
   • Choosing the optimal number interviews to perform.
   • Evaluating the problems and limitations of the selected sample.
2. The goal of the survey is to obtain information relevant to one's research goals; the design of the survey shapes the content, reliability, and usefulness of the survey responses. In addition to providing the necessary questions, the design must also respect the limitations of time and resources. The design process will include:
   • Establishing research goals.
   • Selecting questions and appropriate wording.
   • Evaluating question ordering, potential response effects, and other weaknesses of survey construction.
3. As of now the plan is for all interviews to be performed by members of the survey section via phone calls. The style of the interviews determine the success or failure of completing surveys with respondents. The section will develop methods relevant to:
   • Obtaining interviews
   • Dealing with refusals.
   • Minimizing interviewer effects.
4. Data coding, analysis, and presentation are the final tasks of the survey project. Methods of data cleaning and elementary analysis will be performed on the survey data collected. Survey and sampling information will be made available to news organizations.

Undertaking all of these functions will require covering a wide range of material in a very short period of time. The result will be a comprehensive introduction to applied survey research.

Requirements for the optional Cornell Student Survey section:

1. Participation in weekly survey section.
2. Four short papers (4-5 pages due at beginning of selected survey sections).
3. Approximately 35 telephone interviews of Cornell students.
4. No mid-term exam.

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