Sample This

1 Aug

What do single shot evaluations of MT (replace it with anything else) samples (vis-a-vis census figures) tell us? I am afraid very little. Inference rests upon knowledge of the data (here – respondent) generating process. Without a model of the data generating process, all such research reverts to modest tautology – sample A was closer to census figures than sample B on parameters X,Y, and Z. This kind of comparison has a limited utility: as a companion for substantive research. However, it is not particularly useful if we want to understand the characteristics of the data generating process. For even if respondent generation process is random, any one draw (here – sample) can be far from the true population parameter(s).

Even with lots of samples (respondents), we may not be able to say much if the data generation process is variable. Where there is little expectation that the data generation process will be constant, and it is hard to understand why MT respondent generation process for political surveys will be a constant one (it likely depends on the pool of respondents, which in turn perhaps depends on the economy etc., the incentives offered, the changing lure of incentives, the content of the survey, etc.), we cannot generalize. Of course one way to correct for all of that is to model this variation in the data generating process, but that will require longer observational spans, and more attention to potential sources of variation etc.