Professional political pollsters have been conducting research for many years. Whether Gallop, Pew, Scholastic or many another organizations, their findings should be carefully reviewed and seriously considered.
A couple of dozen Trine University juniors and seniors, who signed up for my Marketing Research course were recruited a class project and assigned to survey a random sample of students to learn more about their political preferences. My class has been notified that since their complied data will be shared with our local media , it should be viewed as writing the first draft of history and as such, must be taken very seriously.
This research course is designed to study techniques and approaches associated with researching specific topics. These include consumer research, market analysis, product research, advertising research, sales analysis and polling of potential voters during this most expensive and politically charged presidential campaign.
TRINE’s institutional review board has approved this class project for the protection of our students and the board has ruled that we have provided adequate safeguards for the rights and welfare of all our participants.
The latest statistics from The Scholastic Student Vote has President Obama winning. This response is from non voting students in a mock election. Our TRINE poll is only from registered university students who plan to vote.
Marketing Research 463 students conducting The Trine Poll will offer be a microcosm of our community and that of college students to provide insight to what the students at this Tri- State area campus are thinking.
Students will complete their work tomorrow and the results are turned over to my colleague, Professor Marek Kolar’s statistics students to crunch these numbers to determine their scientific valdity, as well as the margin of error.
Finally, Trine Professor Mark Helmke will offer his unique insights and expertise. Helmke is a family member of an amazing political Hoosier dynasty, who has gained an extensive amount of experience crunching numbers for US Senator Richard Lugar, Indiana Republican, as well as many other politicians and public servants. Students are also being asked to share their personal experiences while polling our academic community.