In A Glance

The question for this study arose out of the 2008 presidential election, during which several large generalizations were made. I wanted to investigate the validity and depth of these claims. Political analysts  often exaggerate facts, and make them superfluous. Overall, I wanted to investigate the dynamics of the electorate. For example, how old the voters were, how they felt on different issues like immigration and foreign policy. To what extend did these issue influence voters, and the election? I did not obtain sufficient information about occupation, but still was able to conduct a study with the questions based on my survey, which asked subjects to rate themselves from one to ten on the political spectrum, answer questions regarding immigration and negotiations with Iran and Korea, provide their age category, job title, and highest level of education. On a scale, with one very liberal and ten very conservative, one through four represented liberal, five through seven represented moderate, and eight through ten represented conservative. These categories will capture both ends of the spectrum, and more importantly, give me an informative picture of the middle "33%" that every politician appeals to during his campaign. My age categories, 21-30, 31-43, and 43-65 are designed to provide a comparison of the three most recent generations. In the past 50 years, the United States has changed so radically (socially and culturally) that these different generations should be compared through the relativity of dynamic sociological changes.

Obtained from two independent, random samples, the data yielded inadequate results, as all the expected cell counts for all three chi-square significance tests of independence were not greater than five. Though I would have failed to reject my null hypothesis, and stated that there is not an association between the different age groups and political affiliation and feelings on immigration and negotiations with Iran and Korea. My sample ended up being 36, much less than was initially planned. This is most likely the reason for the very low cell counts. In addition, while both of my samples, combined into one, were simple random, it would be inaccurate to say that it is representative of the Cleveland area and its surrounding counties, the initial population of interest. Half of my sample was obtained from the faculty at North Olmsted High School, which alone is biased. All of the staff members are white collar workers. I was unable to compare this to blue collar workers because, of the returned surveys, less than ten were blue collar. Obviously, I was denied the opportunity to answer my original question. However, this also led me to ask more informative questions, as this election was marked by radically different foreign policy changes and a huge amount of new, young voters. The other part of the sample was obtained from the parents of students in three of my daily classes. Of course, I got less of these surveys back, not to mention response bias, as many people did not answer questions on the survey that were required fro me to perform an analysis.

In conclusion, I was not able to make any valid conclusions from my data, as the assumptions were not met. I am also unable to extrapolate these results to my initial population of interest, the Cleveland area and its surrounding counties, Medina, Lake County, Erie County, and Ashland County. Even if my results had been valid, this extrapolation would probably not have been suited for my sample. The real variability in the sample came from the high school staff because most of them are not North Olmsted residents; this gives me a look at other counties in the general area. If my results had been valid, the most accurate extrapolation could be to North Olmsted; half of my subjects were parents of kids that live in the city.