NBC-WSJ Poll on BSA 10/11 decision

[walk in the woods]

 

Margin of error is 3.27%...so the jury is out on that. 

 

At any rate, my second point is still true. One would expect that generation to be more progressive. Having a result land within the margin of error is hardly a resounding "in favor" proclamation (my words, no one else's). And yes, it could easily be 50.27% in favor as it could be 47.27% against. Point being, not resounding and certainly unexpected.

 

 

Good point. I wonder if they see the move by BSA to be an eroding of GSUSA's purview, much like some here (I among them) think it is an eroding of Boy Scouting. That would be an interesting follow up question.

 

One might also note that 35-49 year olds (i.e. potentially parents of youth that could currently be members), the number opposing vs approving are well outside the margin of error.

[RememberSchiff]

One might also note that 35-49 year olds (i.e. potentially parents of youth that could currently be members), the number opposing vs approving are well outside the margin of error.

True. And true for the Billy Joel new parent age group of 65+.

Edited November 2, 2017 by RememberSchiff

[Col. Flagg]

One might also note that 35-49 year olds (i.e. potentially parents of youth that could currently be members), the number opposing vs approving are well outside the margin of error.

 

Yup. But then again I think we knew that was the case.

[Eagle1993]

Given this survey, does that mean 77% of Republicans would want girls kicked out of Venturing? It would be interesting to get the questions asked and I wonder if it was clear what the proposal was and the current status that girls are already in the BSA. if it is simply should girls be in Boy Scouts (that is not the proposal and girls are already in the BSA).

 

@Col Flag ... to be clear “good†isn’t necessarily great and the BSA has a lot of work on their left, their announcement and roll out was terrible. Note that the margin of error on the cross tabs would be even greater than the overall number, so you are correct that it could still be negative across the board.

[David CO]

Considering the huge divide based on political party affiliation, it would seem that the BSA national leadership is skewed towards one political party.

[Cambridgeskip]

Why can't scouts do their own survey and do it right? Should be easy enough for some high school or college boys to setup up a voting website. Authentication will be a problem and I don't expect the BSA to provide their member database.

It's tricky.

 

I've had to do an extensive survey internally for my employer when we were looking at IT skills and the problems go like this.....

 

The mechanics of setting up some kind of voting website are in themselves pretty simple. Trouble is that if you simply set it up and invite people to use it what you get is a self selecting sample. Whatever features of that sample it is that cause that particular group to choose themselves, you get their bias in your results. Which makes the results a waste of time.

 

So then you have to select your own sample. And in doing so you have to do your level best to make that sample representative. And the variables on doing that are endless. In my situation we had to get a sample that was representative of age, gender, pay grade, current job role. In your case lets assume you are going to survey those of boy scout age and above plus parents of all youth members. You'd need to balance it across age, state, urban v rural, gender and a million and one other variables. And you need to get it balanced within each one as well. The number crunching is difficult and needs people with pretty good training in stats to do it. That doesn't come cheap.

 

It can be done, have no doubt about that. But to do it and do it right you are going to have to stump up the money. Less you pay the bigger the margin of error.

[NJCubScouter]

Considering the huge divide based on political party affiliation, it would seem that the BSA national leadership is skewed towards one political party.

 

I would bet $1 (my standard maximum wager) that there are more Republicans than Democrats on the BSA Executive Board (or whatever the highest governing body is.)  Not that it matters... and not that either one of us would be able to get the information necessary to prove whether I'm correct or not.

[Col. Flagg]

It can be done, have no doubt about that. But to do it and do it right you are going to have to stump up the money. Less you pay the bigger the margin of error.

 

Why over-complicate it? Members only. Use your my.scouting login. One vote per member and they are on their honor to let the person registered vote their mind. One question: "Should BSA open Boy Scouts to girls?" 

 

I'm not a stats professor, but doesn't "margin of error" only come in to play when you take a statistical subset of a population? If so, then if you offer up the survey to all 760,000 registered Boy Scout members you wouldn't really have a margin of error would you?

 

BSA has the capability to do this. We don't need a big, deeply-thought survey. The questions is pretty simple if you boil it down.

[Tampa Turtle]

Mrs Turtle saw the article and just emailed me "Your sure got some stupid leaders".

[RememberSchiff]

It's tricky.

 

I've had to do an extensive survey internally for my employer when we were looking at IT skills and the problems go like this.....

 

The mechanics of setting up some kind of voting website are in themselves pretty simple. Trouble is that if you simply set it up and invite people to use it what you get is a self selecting sample. Whatever features of that sample it is that cause that particular group to choose themselves, you get their bias in your results. Which makes the results a waste of time.

 

So then you have to select your own sample. And in doing so you have to do your level best to make that sample representative. And the variables on doing that are endless. In my situation we had to get a sample that was representative of age, gender, pay grade, current job role. In your case lets assume you are going to survey those of boy scout age and above plus parents of all youth members. You'd need to balance it across age, state, urban v rural, gender and a million and one other variables. And you need to get it balanced within each one as well. The number crunching is difficult and needs people with pretty good training in stats to do it. That doesn't come cheap.

 

It can be done, have no doubt about that. But to do it and do it right you are going to have to stump up the money. Less you pay the bigger the margin of error.

 

Good points on the issues with a representative survey sample.

 

If scouts did do their "own" survey, as imperfect as it may be, they could certainly do a better job than National did. That could be useful.

[Cambridgeskip]

Why over-complicate it? Members only. Use your my.scouting login. One vote per member and they are on their honor to let the person registered vote their mind. One question: "Should BSA open Boy Scouts to girls?" 

 

I'm not a stats professor, but doesn't "margin of error" only come in to play when you take a statistical subset of a population? If so, then if you offer up the survey to all 760,000 registered Boy Scout members you wouldn't really have a margin of error would you?

 

BSA has the capability to do this. We don't need a big, deeply-thought survey. The questions is pretty simple if you boil it down.

Certainly you can do that, but what you get voting are those that feel particularly strongly one way or the other about it. And the result may not be representative. So you may say to that well if they can't be bothered to vote they don't really matter. But nevertheless they may have an opinion and that may result in their continued membership or otherwise.

 

The really tricky part of any survey is getting the opinion of those who aren't really passionate about the question but nevertheless have an opinion. And they typically make up the majority.

 

Take a look at how many users use this forum. And how many of them have commented on this thread. Maybe one of the mods could give us the stats? Doesn't mean that those who haven't don't have an opinion.

[RememberSchiff]

Take a look at how many users use this forum. And how many of them have commented on this thread. Maybe one of the mods could give us the stats? Doesn't mean that those who haven't don't have an opinion.

 

Wish I had the tools. There are 43580 registered users on scouter.com but only a small number are active posters. Number of unregistered lurkers ...who knows.

[NJCubScouter]

Wish I had the tools. There are 43580 registered users on scouter.com but only a small number are active posters. Number of unregistered lurkers ...who knows.

 

I wonder how many of those 43,000+ are actual human beings. 

[Eagle1993]

@@David CO ... or they are more aware of the financial situation we are in which could trump their concern on the social issue. As they did not launch coed Troops I’m not so sure they are fully in the Democratic camp. Even on the gay and transgender issue they only moved when they started loosing $$$ (that was under Gates... a Republican). GSUSA was way ahead of them on that change. Last time I checked Randall Stephenson donated heavily to Republicans and nothing to Democrats.

[Tampa Turtle]

I wonder how many of those 43,000+ are actual human beings. 

Russia.