Assessing Public Perceptions

Instructions:

MASS KILLING QUESTION – ASSIGNMENT HELP

Assignment #2

Assessing Public Perceptions

Point Value: 10 points of your total grade.

Requirements Include:

• At least one reference from the class text by Joel Best.
• At least one reference from the PDF titled What is Public Opinion Polling and Why Is It Important? by Gallup World Poll.
• One reference page in ASA format.

Overall Assignment Goals:

• Evaluate survey research findings that measure the opinions and attitudes of certain groups of people in the American population.
• Evaluate how claimsmakers and policymakers might utilize the findings of this survey research.
• Practice using American Sociological Association (ASA) citation style.

Have you ever lost points on an assignment for making a claim such as “these days, everyone wants world peace” or using a phrase like, “people nowadays don’t trust the government”? Perhaps one of your professors informed you that statements like these must be supported by empirical evidence. But how do you find evidence to make a claim about what groups of people think about a specific topic? How can we begin to understand what might be going on in the minds of other people? We can physically measure tangible things in nature, like climate change and the number of sharks in the oceans – but how do we measure what people think about some specific topic?

Surveys and polls are intended to measure traits such as peoples’ attitudes and opinions on a myriad of subjects; they can provide a useful way to understand public perceptions. Overall, surveys and polls can tell us something about what people think and do – at least what people say they think and do.

In this assignment, you will read about the results of a public perception survey of two groups of respondents and answer the following questions.

Step 1: Open and read the PEW Research Center report titled A Majority of U.S. teens fear a shooting could happen at their school, and most parents share their concern by Nikki Graf.

Step 2: Address the following…

1. The report features survey data that can tell us what two specific groups of people think about a specific subject. Name the subject.

2. The report features survey data about the opinions and attitudes (i.e., perceptions) of two groups of American people. Name those two groups.

3. Chapter six of our class text explains that for many social issues “opinions vary with the respondents’ characteristics: [such as] differences in race, social class (as measured by education or income), age, gender, and religion often influence people’s opinions” (Best 2019:191). List the respondents’ characteristics that are discussed in the report. Hint – there are at least 4 characteristics discussed in the report.

To help you answer questions 4 and 5, reference Ch.6 (hint – a helpful section is titled The Public’s Role in the Social Problems Process). *You must provide at least one reference from the textbook to support your argument.

4. In 100-200 words, describe how you think a claimsmaker could use this research data to shape their argument for convincing others that the topic should be recognized as a social problem.

5. In 100-200 words, describe how American policymakers might use the report’s findings.

To help you answer question 6, use the PDF titled What is Public Opinion Polling and Why Is It Important? by Gallup World Poll. *You must provide at least one reference from this source to support your argument.

6. Why do you think researchers at the PEW center decided to conduct this research and measure the opinions and attitudes of the two groups of respondents? List two reasons.