Training a Team of Students to Tap Into the Public Mind

Photo

Brian McDonald, 43, is associate director of the High Point University Survey Research Center in High Point, N.C.

Q. What types of surveys does your center do?

A. We conduct the High Point University Poll three times in the fall and three times in the spring. We try to survey between 400 and 600 North Carolina residents in each poll. Some polls are more focused on political issues, and occasionally we include questions from national polls, which we’ll do for the presidential election.

Where do you obtain the contact information for potential respondents?

We purchase telephone numbers from a company called Survey Sampling International that provides landline and cellphone numbers within a specified region.

Who makes the phone calls, and how do you train them?

I manage a staff of students. I hire at the beginning of the fall semester and again toward the end, for spring. I train them on ethics, research methods and data collection. I like to keep students involved all the way through and talk to them about data we’re going to publish afterward so they can see how everything comes together.

Is there a poll you found particularly interesting?

The one involving the 2014 North Carolina Senate race between Kay Hagan and Thom Tillis. Several polls showed Ms. Hagan ahead, but we showed the candidates consistently even. Mr. Tillis won, which added a level of validity to what we do.

What do you do during the summer?

I work on enhancing our training. I also write about and analyze our research. We ask our faculty and students to add polling questions for any research they’re doing, perhaps on education, the economy or public health.

What are your thoughts about the reliability of polls?

A poll is a snapshot in time. It tells us what people are thinking at the moment. But opinions can change, and pollsters interview a subset of people.

Will you be conducting a poll on the transgender bathroom legislation?

If it’s still an issue in the fall, it will probably be in one of those polls. With the upcoming election, we’ll have plenty of other things to ask about, too.