Pros and cons of public opinion polls - Jason Robert Jaffe

How do public opinion polls work? And, more importantly, are they accurate? Jason Robert Jaffe reveals the complexities and biases of polls and provides tips on how to think about polls as we make everyday decisions.

Lesson by Jason Robert Jaffe, animation by Flaming Medusa Studios.

[TEDEd]

Hi Conor. Thx for the input! TED-Ed vids are based on real lessons delivered by real teachers throughout the world. All lessons/educators are discovered via an open nomination system on the TED-Ed website. This lesson was nominated by an American History teacher. We'd love to help visualize lessons that relate to all regions/nations around the world, but in year one of TED-Ed we haven't seen a ton of of nominations to that regard. Can you all help us change that? Nom. link at end of every vid!

[emilyc]

I hate when interest groups share polls on social media. They do not give us accurate information as the sample will be biased.

[JintxDJ]

Why do you always have such amazing videos (both in animation and structure) and then too often it seems like the sound was recorded with a potato? :D

[mayaayam]

His explanation was very good. Deserves a like =)

[defydog]

Compared with the follow up question involving criminal activity, it does seem like a less suggestive question, but I do agree that it is indeed a leading question in itself.

[lindadiehl]

This video really helped me understand political public opinion polls, but I still want to know what the plus or minus after the R or D. Is that confidence level or accuracy level or what? I'll keep looking....

[YankeeDoodleDandy]

I can recall watching a lecture a few days ago and I didn't even think about my country not being represented until just now. It's silly but have at it.

[lowrider]

I knew I shouldn't have scrolled down but I did it anyway.

People were mad at this video because the examples were American? Of course the examples were American. The video was made by an American and produced by an American company. If the video was made by a British person for a British company the examples would probably be British.

Not that it matters because you didn't need to be American to understand the examples, they were there simply to illustrate the point.

If some other country was mentioned and Americans started complaining about how they couldn't relate to the video I highly doubt you'd be sympathetic towards them.

[littleboylosto]

Totally going to use this for a class on sampling and bias at school. thx!

[JIEUN]

I've vaguely thought that public opinion polls seem unreliable, but I never knew the reason. Now I understand what makes public opinion polls imperfect and why we still use them.

[Jonyrijo]

conhecemo-nos? ou é só por sermos portugueses?

[TIMIMPALA]

Lol the Guy with the cane in the sample people

[boboschwabo]

SiouxValley getting it done 🔥 good video

[MrConorWB]

My comment was not an attack on America. I was just giving advice for TED-ED. I love the videos and watch all of them. have learnt a lot from them. I was just giving them an idea on how to appeal to more people so more people can watch and learn from their videos. Sorry if I caused offence to anyone.

[NocnikBezTajemnic]

I was waiting for the Portal Potato joke.

[SCiMoDoomerX]

"What is your opinion? -Yes, -No"

Go home poll, you're drunk.

[Tupster]

Pollsters are smart enough that they have a model of how many people say they are going to vote versus how many actually vote, so this question still has utility.

[Alex_White]

0:22 why did he say "for for mayor"

[Omnilatent]

"Are you going to vote?" is a "social desirable"-question. Better is something like "Some people are going to vote, some people are not. Are you going to vote?" or something like that.

[Calebgreatjob]

Literall have to write a 5 page paper on this. CLUTCH