As statisticians in training, we need to learn the professionalism of interpreting data for the general public without distorting the information or adding our personal opinions into the results. It’s important to be neutral, and allow the numbers to tell the story.

Go to http://www.pollingreport.comLinks to an external site.

Select a poll – not the same one you used for discussion, take a picture of it (or copy the results), then write a short essay (two pages or less, double spaced) about what you see as a statistician. The essay should be three paragraphs:

Paragraph 1 – a recap of the polling study – what is it about, number of subjects (sample size), date of the study, and the poll result – percentages of yes and nos.

Paragraph 2 – interpretation of the results: incorporating the margin of error to the responses (+ and – the MoE to the responses – do they overlap?) to determine if they are significantly different.

Paragraph 3 – without including your personal beliefs and opinions, do the results make sense to you? Do you feel that the polling is not accurate? How would you conduct a poll on this subject differently? Include supportive information where appropriate.