Sampling

Sampling

Justine Trudeau is the current prime minister of Canada and is up for election next year. As usual, opinion poll and expert analysis are out. His party, Liberals, is currently put at 36% while the Conservatives at 35%. This is according to Ipsos latest opinion poll.

The opinion poll by Ipsos does not reflect the opinion of the voters. This is because Ipsos uses Quotas and weighting in an attempt to get what they think is a accurate to +/- 2.5% of accuracy. This normally has the tendency of skewing results as the voter base is normally not with a predictable relationship that reflects the whole country. Geography and age plays a big role in the Canadian voter history which they clearly indicate on the detailed report.

Ipsos also notes that there are 1 in 10 people who haven’t decided yet (Ipsos, 2018). This means 10 % of the whole population further skewing the +/- 2.5% accuracy prediction. A sample size of 2,000 in such a country will not give any meaningful and predictable results. For such an undertaking, a larger sample size will be needed to give the poll any credibility.

Interviewing as a method of data collection might skew the results and the interviewers might make the interviewee to go with an option they might not have otherwise opted for from body cues like body language etc

References

Liberals and Conservatives Neck-and-Neck A Year Out From Election. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.ipsos.com/en-ca/news-polls/liberals-conservatives-neck-and-neck-year-out-election

https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2018-10/detailed_report_0.pdf