Push polling is occurring

right up until the very last in our current election campaign. If the results of the latest "YouGov" poll are to be believed then the present government will be returned. That may well be the case but the poll is saying that the government will be returned with a landslide majority.

This is not what other polls are suggesting. They are more inclined to say that the government will be returned but will need to depend on others to have the numbers to govern. 

Commonsense suggests two things. The first is that the polls could be wrong - either way. The second is that the polls could be right - either way. 

I know something about writing questions for questionnaires. While at university I participated in some research being done by my supervisor. He came in one Monday morning and announced he had written a questionnaire he wanted to use for research purposes. Would the rest of us please have a look at it? We could bring up any suggestions for changes at a meeting later in the week. He handed out copies to all of us and nothing more was said.

I was living in the same hall of residence as another of his doctoral students and that evening she came looking for me.

"There's something wrong with this Cat," she told me, "But I can't work it out."

She waved the questionnaire at me and I breathed a sigh of relief. I was not the only person who could see what was wrong.

"He's writing the questions from his point of view," I told her. "I don't think he realises it but they are designed to get the results he would like."

She nodded and we worked on changes. We tried to justify each change. It worried me because our supervisor was a man who did not like to be wrong. He might seek advice but if it did not accord with his own views he would almost certainly take exception to it. 

I went into the meeting feeling worried but determined. There was a lot riding on this in terms of funding. Our supervisor's questions sounded good but we knew what he wanted to do and how he wanted to approach the research.

His third and fourth students, both young men, gave us a nod across the table and one of them gave me a discreet thumbs up. He had read what we had given them.

A couple of staff members came in and then the head of the research unit itself. Was I imagining it or did he give me a particularly hard look? Was he giving my fellow student another look?

The preliminaries over our supervisor was about to launch in to a discussion when he was stopped by the head of the research unit. He started to talk about the importance of how questions were framed and how they could influence the outcome of any research. He talked about how to look for alternative ways of asking questions. 

Eventually we went away with new input from everyone and a questionnaire which elicited much more information. It was a valuable lesson for everyone.

For me the relief at having recognised what was going on was enormous because my own research results had shown me something very important. Quite by accident it turned a previous theory upside down. My supervisor had kept insisting I must be doing something wrong.  I was following his instructions except for one thing, the one thing which allowed the subjects to tell me what they actually saw and not what we believed they saw. 

All this was not particularly insightful on my part. It was more of a "how do I make it possible for them to tell me" moment that had worked. What it taught me was how the way you ask a question, any question, can have an influence on the answer you get.  I could justify what I eventually did and it had, and still has, positive learning outcomes. It was not about influencing the way students were thinking but how they were learning to communicate. 

I do not think this can be said about push polling. A day out from an election the "results" are obviously being used to influence voters.