American Government / Unit 4 Gov 168 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Scientific Polling
Captions available
The idea
A scientific opinion poll measures a population's views by putting careful questions to a representative, random sample.
In practice
Polling firms report the margin of error, polling dates, respondent count, and population sampled.
Where people slip
A poll estimates the population; the sample is never the population.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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