Measuring Political Opinions - Johns Hopkins University Undergraduate Student Survey

Purpose_________________________________________________________________

This survey is intended to be a general indication of how JHU undergraduates tend to feel about political and current events. It is not intended as an indisputable scientific poll, but rather as a first step towards measuring the attitudes of undergraduates and it is hoped that other students will undertake similar efforts in the future to further this purpose.

As a senior, the author has heard much debate over the last three-odd years about whether the student body is politically conservative, liberal, or otherwise. He has also wondered how many students actually follow the news at all. This survey attempts to address these issues.

Much is often made of the low voter turnout among young voters. One common explanation of this is that politicians do not talk about issues that are important to them. This survey delves into this issue, attempting to measure the propensity of Hopkins students to vote, or to intend to vote, and which issues are most important to Hopkins undergrads.

The author has also tried to gauge the views of Hopkins students towards the war and the nation-building process in Iraq, as well as their general views of President Bush and the Democratic and Republican Parties.

The hope is that this survey, instead of resolving debate and discussion on campus, will serve to stimulate the political dialogue on campus, a dialogue that is already begun by student organizations such as College Democrats and Republicans, MSE Symposium, Foreign Affairs Symposium, and numerous other speaking and lecture series. Really increasing awareness of current events on campus, however, is up to the students themselves and their willingness to take this survey, these events, these ideas, back to their dorm rooms and cafeterias to further discuss and develop. This survey will hopefully encourage this dialogue.

The survey, exactly as given to students, is attached at the end of this report.

Method_________________________________________________________________

Ideally, the survey would have been given to a group of students randomly selected from an alphabetical list or a list organized numerically by J-Card number. The second best method would have been to divide the campus into four areas (such as Upper Quad, Lower Quad, Levering, and Mattin Center) and to hand out surveys in these four areas at three different times of day (9am, 12pm, 3pm). While this method would not have yielded as random a sample as the first method would have, it would have been relatively random. This method was not possible due to time and manpower limitations, as well as the difficulty of getting students to stop and fill out a one-page survey while walking on campus.

As neither of these methods were feasible, the survey was given to students at places on campus where students were sitting down already and that seemed to be as neutral as possible; in other words, particular types of students didn't tend to gather in those places. These places were Silk Road and Levering Cafeteria during lunchtime, M-Level at MSE, the HAC Lab, and Caf?? Q. The surveys were filled out between October 6 and October 20, 2003.

They were administered by the author approaching students and asking them to fill out a survey being performed for the Newsletter. They filled out the survey without supervision from the author then notified the author when they were done and handed it back to him.

The completed surveys were then entered into an Excel spreadsheet separated by year and gender. The author also correlated certain questions with party identification in his counting, such as how closely news was followed, ideological identification, approval of President Bush, and issue selection. In total, 254 surveys were filled out. The raw data is available on the Newsletter website.

There were two questions on the survey that created some controversy, questions nine and ten, on which issues are most important and how the Iraq situation affected students' views of Bush, respectively. For question nine, the six issues that were chosen to be listed, economy, education, fighting crime, defense, Social Security/Medicare, and taxes, certainly did not comprise a comprehensive list of the important issues of the day. The number of listed issues had to be restricted to six because of the constraints of convenience.

There were certain issues that may have been listed but weren't, notably missing were health care, the environment, and foreign policy. Health care was somewhat covered by the "Social Security/Medicare" option, but there are obviously more issues that were not part of the survey. Although it is one of today's most pressing issues, the environment did not seem to qualify as more important than any of the six that were already on the list. Foreign policy is mostly covered by the "defense" option. Again, there are obviously issues in foreign policy that are not covered by the term "defense," but the author felt that "defense" more closely captured the essence of foreign policy in today's world than "foreign policy" would have.

In addition, there has been some concern expressed that the question might be interpreted as asking students to mark which two issues they most agree or disagree with in their current situation. This is a valid concern, but the author phrased the question in such a way as to ask for their overall concern about the six topics.

The tenth question attempted to gauge the feeling of students toward the recent actions in Iraq. The author felt that phrasing the question in this manner was the best way to attempt to capture these feelings. Only asking, "Did you approve of the war in Iraq?" would have drastically oversimplified a remarkably complex issue. Asking the question in the context of whether the war and ongoing nation-building process made students more or less favorable to President Bush allowed students to consider the full complexity of the war and nation-building in deciding on their answers.

In addition, the author realizes that the term "nation-building" can be viewed as a politically loaded term. It is, however, an accurate term that has been used commonly in the press and by government officials and politicians to describe what has happened after the war in Iraq. This seemed to be the most understandable way to refer to the situation in Iraq now.

Findings________________________________________________________________

There are two categories of findings coming out of this survey: those within a 5% margin of error with a 90% confidence interval, and those beyond that range. The most important findings of the survey are within that range, and are listed below. The statistics that are beyond the margin of error of the next lower statistic are marked with an asterisk (see footnote below).

* Students on whether they will vote in the next election...

Will Vote: 84.6%*

Will Not Vote: 15.4%

* Of those who plan on voting, students plan on voting for...

Someone Besides Bush: 69.5%*

Don't Know: 17.8%

Bush: 12.7%

* Students follow the news...

Somewhat Closely: 41.3%

Not Too Closely: 34.6%*

Very: 18.5%*

Not At All: 5.5%

* Students identifying themselves as...

Democrats: 45.7%*

Independents or None: 29.9%

Republicans: 20.9%

* Students describing their political ideology as...

Moderate: 44.2%*

Liberal: 30.9%*

Conservative: 14.9%

Very Liberal: 8.4%*

Very Conservative: 1.6%

* Students with the following general impressions of the Democratic Party...

Favorable: 53.3%*

Unfavorable: 22.7%

* Students with the following general impressions of the Republican Party...

Unfavorable: 50.6%*

Favorable: 20.7%

* Students rating the job Bush has done as president...

Disapprove: 69.2%*

Approve: 23.7%

* Students rating whether the "recent war in Iraq and the ongoing nation-building process" has made them...

Less Favorable to Bush: 77.4%*

More Favorable to Bush: 15.6%

* Students rating the following issue as one of the two issues that most concerns them out of the six listed...

Economy: 70.1%*

Education: 46.1%*

Defense: 34.3%*

Taxes: 20.5%

Social Security/Medicare: 20.1%*

Crime: 7.1%

The results in the second category fall outside the 5% margin of error range. While interesting, these results must be considered preliminary findings at best. The most important of these results are listed below, and are marked to show whether the results differ by more than the margin of error. Complete listings of exact margins of error for each result can be found in the raw data.

* Ideological identification of students who identified themselves as Democrats...

Liberal: 50.0%

Moderate: 37.7%*

Very Liberal: 7.9%

* Ideological identification of students who identified themselves as Republicans...

Conservative: 46.2%

Moderate: 44.2%*

Very Conservative: 7.7%

* Ideological identification of students who identified themselves as Independents or None...

Moderate: 60.3%*

Liberal: 23.3%

Conservative: 9.6%

* Ratings of President Bush by party identification...

Democrats Who Disapprove: 91.9%**

Republicans Who Approve: 72.9%**

Independents and Nones Who Disapprove: 71.2%**

* Students who marked the economy as one of their two most important issues by party identification...

Democrats: 68.7%

Republicans: 66.0%

Independents and Nones: 70.0%

* Students who marked education as one of their two most important issues by party identification...

Democrats: 52.2%

Independents and Nones: 45.3%

Republicans: 30.2%

* Students who marked defense as one of their two most important issues by party identification...

Republicans: 54.7%*

Democrats: 32.2%

Independents and Nones: 26.7%

* Students who marked taxes as one of their two most important issues by party identification...

Republicans: 32.1%

Independents and Nones: 20.0%

Democrats: 16.5%

* Students who marked Social Security/Medicare as one of their two most important issues by party identification...

Democrats: 25.2%

Independents and Nones: 17.3%

Republicans: 13.2%

* Party identification of female students...

Democrat: 50.8%*

Independent and None: 33.3%*

Republican: 12.7%

* Party identification of male students...

Democrat: 40.9%

Republican: 29.1%

Independent and None: 26.0%

* Students who marked economy by gender...

Male: 74.8%

Female: 65.9%

* Students who marked education by gender...

Male: 40.2%

Female: 52.4%

* Students who marked crime by gender...

Male: 5.5%

Female: 8.7%

* Students who marked defense by gender...

Male: 38.6%

Female: 30.2%

* Students who marked Social Security/Medicare by gender...

Male: 16.5%

Female: 23.8%

* Students who marked taxes by gender...

Male: 23.6%

Female: 17.5%

*These statistics are still above the number listed below it even when adding the margin of error to the lower number and subtracting the margin of error from the higher number. These statistics carry more weight in that they indicate a definite difference despite a higher margin of error than the first category of results.

**These statistics are higher than their counterpart given the same conditions as above. In other words, the statistic for percent of Democrats who disapprove of Bush is beyond the margin of error compared with the percent of Democrats who approve of Bush. The same is true for Republican approval of Bush (it is beyond the margin of error compared with the percent of Republicans who disapprove of Bush) and for Independents and Nones (it is beyond the margin of error compared with the percent of Independents and Nones who approve of Bush).

Note: All numbers rounded to the first decimal place.

Analysis________________________________________________________________

Awareness

One particularly encouraging result of this survey is the rate at which students follow the news. It is often opined that college students are blissfully unaware of the world outside their campus, being focused on the pursuit of knowledge and the enrichment of the human mind. In fact, a full 18.5% of students profess to follow the news very closely and 41.3% follow somewhat closely while only 5.5% of students admitted to not following current events at all. Naturally, students may be slightly optimistic when filling out a survey, thus preventing the survey from reflecting the reality of how aware students are of current events. But even taking this into account, the findings are encouraging.

Ideology

One of the key features of the student body is clearly its moderate ideological identification. A clear plurality (44.2%) identified themselves as ideological moderates. This includes 44.2% of self-identified Republicans who declared themselves ideological moderates, along with 37.7% of Democrats and 60.3% of Independents and Nones. Even many of those students who declare a party affiliation view themselves as ideologically moderate.

Voter Turnout

Another interesting finding is the high percentage of students who intend to vote in the next election, 84.6%. This is particularly remarkable when considering that in the 2000 presidential election, fewer than 40% of 18-24 year olds voted, according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. Naturally, many students who responded that they intend to vote in November 2004 will not actually make it to the polls, but that still should leave a higher percentage of Hopkins students voting than is the national average. This may hint at a correlation between education level and socioeconomic background to the propensity to vote.

Attempting to explore why students who don't intend to vote respond as such, the study asked students to mark why they were not planning on voting. While the sampling pool for this statistic is too small, yielding a large margin of error, to quote a number, the responses on the surveys tended to be one of three: 1) they don't care enough to vote, 2) voting is too inconvenient, and 3) they were too uninformed. Notably, no one responded that they did not plan on voting because politicians don't talk about "youth" issues. As question nine showed, Hopkins students seem to care about similar issues as the general public does.

Voting Preferences and President Bush

Among those who intended to vote, only 12.7% of them planned on voting for Bush in 2004, with 69.5% planning on voting for "someone else." This is a surprisingly wide margin that seems inconsistent with other results of the survey. Students have a generally favorable impression of the Republican Party at a rate of 20.7%, identify as Republicans at a rate of 20.9%, and are ideologically conservative at a rate of 14.9%. Furthermore, 34.3% of students marked defense, supposedly Bush's strong point, as one of the two issues they care most about. More specifically to Bush, 23.7% of students approve of the job Bush has been doing and 15.6% responded that the recent events in Iraq have made them more favorable to Bush.

While the rate of those who plan to vote against Bush match up with those who disapprove of the job he has done (69.5% and 69.2% respectively), Bush's positive numbers in general areas do not seem to be translating as effectively into positive Bush votes. It is still early in the election cycle, however, and 17.8% of students still have not made up their minds about who they will vote for. Perhaps the disparity in numbers demonstrated in the above paragraph will push a majority of the undecides into the Bush column come 2004.

Issues

Not surprisingly, the issue that Hopkins undergraduates care most about is the economy. Of the 254 surveys filled out, 178, or 70.1%, of them, had the economy marked as one of the two most important issues to the respondent. With many students having already begun the job search, and all students within a few years of beginning that search, an economic recovery that spurs job creation is in every Hopkins student's interest. This adds on to the general concern with the economy, which the American public shares. Similarly, education being the second most important issue to students at 40.1% is not surprising. The issues of defense, taxes, and Social Security/Medicare round out those issues that concern students the most (with only 7.1% of students marking fighting crime).

While the data on who prefers which issues has high margins of error, they are still informative. Party identification had nothing to do with students' concern over the economy, with Democrats, Republicans, and Independents and Nones all marking economy at roughly the same rate. Some issues did seem to be more partisan, however. Slightly more Democrats and Independents and Nones marked education, for instance, than Republicans (52.2% and 45.3% to 30.2% respectively). The defense issue saw the same partisan divide only reversed (54.7% of Republicans, 32.2% of Democrats, and only 26.7% of Independents and Nones). Taxes also seemed to be more of a Republican issue with 32.1% of Republicans marking it, 16.5% of Democrats marking it, and 20% of Independents and Nones marking it. Social Security and Medicare seemed to be a slightly more Democratic issue, with 25.2% of Democrats, 13.2% of Republicans, and 17.3% of Independents and Nones marking it.

We can also take a look at how the issues divide along gender lines, again qualified by the fact that none of these differences were outside the margin of error. Unlike the partisan divide, the economy tended to be marked slightly more by men, who marked it at a rate of 74.8% than by women who marked it at 65.9%. Reversely, education tended to be a more female issue (52.4% to 40.2%). Men marked defense and taxes slightly more and women marked Social Security and Medicare slightly more.

Gender and Party

As with the issues, we can look at correlations between party identification and gender. Women were far more Democratic than men. Among women, the difference between Democratic and Republican party identification was 38.1 percentage points while it was only 11.8 points among men. Similar rates of men and women identified as Independents or Nones. These results can be seen in the division of issues along gender lines. Female students tended to care more about the issues that the Democratic Party tends to be strong on, such as education and Social Security. Men cared more about traditional Republican issues such as defense.

Possible Sources of Error__________________________________________________

As mentioned in the methods section, the two main possible sources of error in this survey are the lack of a truly random sample and the wording of the questions and, in the case of question nine, the choices presented. It became clear that as surveys were handed out at various locations on campus that particular students were present at several of these places. This seemed to indicate that even though students did not gather in the places on campus where the survey was administered based on major, year, or gender, students did gather at several of those places based on personal preference. This clearly hindered the author's attempt at collecting a truly random sample, but again, resources prevented the collection of a truly random sample.

As for the wording of the survey, the rationales were explained in the methods section for the two most controversial questions.

Conclusion______________________________________________________________

As was written in the first section, this survey is not meant as a completely scientific and indisputably accurate measure of the political views of Hopkins students. There are certainly possibilities for error in these results, some results more than others as indicated. The author believes that the survey does go a long way, however, towards clarifying certain trends in the undergraduate student body. The tendency of students to choose Democrats as their party and moderate as their ideology is clear, regardless of any possible inaccuracies in the methods of the survey. Students seem to follow the news at a higher rate than may have been expected, and they plan on voting at high rates. Their dislike of Bush is clear in the high rate of intention to vote for "someone else" besides Bush 2004, the low job rating they give the President, and the high rate at which their impressions of Bush were made less favorable in light of recent events in Iraq.

Students are concerned about the economy and education, in that order. Women tend to be more Democratic than men, and men care more about defense than do women. It is also clear that Democrats dislike Bush more than Republicans like him.

Regardless of the statistical limitations of this survey, this much seems to be ascertainable. It is very much hoped that another student, or group of students, will conduct another survey of this type in the future so that these numbers can be tracked over time. Future surveys may also choose to delve into particular issues further, such as why students plan to vote or not vote, which students care about which issues, what type of news students follow, how students opinions are affected by the classes they attend, and many more.

If there are any questions, criticisms, or reactions to this survey, the author is anxious to hear and respond to them at newsletterr@jhu.edu.

Acknowledgements--________________________________________________________

The author would like to thank Professor Milton Cummings for his help in reviewing the text of the survey, as well as Donniell Fishkind and Professor Paul Maiste for reviewing the appropriate statistical procedures that had to be taken to ensure mathematically accurate results.

JHU Newsletter: Political Survey - Fall 2003

Please fill out only once.

1. What year are you at Hopkins? Fresh Soph Junior Senior

2. Gender: Male Female

3. Which of these best describes your course of study at JHU? (circle one)

Engineering Humanities Science Social Sciences

4. How closely would you say you follow the news, current events, etc.? (circle one)

very closely somewhat closely not too closely not at all

5. What political party do you most closely associate with? (circle one)

Democrat Republican Green Independent Other (write on back) None

(a) Do you have a generally favorable or unfavorable impression of: (circle one for each)

Democratic Party favorable unfavorable no opinion

Republican Party favorable unfavorable no opinion

6. How would you describe your ideology? (circle one)

very conservative conservative moderate liberal very liberal

7. If you are eligible, do you plan on voting in the next general election in November 2004? yes no

(a) If no, why? (circle one)

don't care too inconvenient other (write on back)

(b) If yes, assuming the next presidential election were being held today, would you vote for: (circle one) George Bush someone else don't know

8. Do you approve or disapprove of the job George W. Bush is doing as President? (circle one)

9. Mark the two issues among the following six that concern you the most: (check up to two)

___ Economy (jobs, deficit, etc.)

___ Education (funding, testing, etc.)

___ Fighting Crime

___ Defense (homeland security, military)

___ Social Security/Medicare

___ Taxes (cutting, raising)

10. Has the recent war in Iraq and the ongoing nation-building process in Iraq made you more or less favorable toward President Bush?