Labor Unions Seen as Good for Workers, Not U.S. Competitiveness

Analyzes survey findings on views of private and public sector unions; their effects on salary and benefits, working conditions, productivity, availability of good jobs, and U.S. companies' global competitiveness; and which side to take in disputes

Assessing the Cell Phone Challenge to Survey Research in 2010

Updates an analysis of the complexity of including cell phone samples in surveys and issues of non-coverage bias. Examines weighted estimates from landline, cell, and combined samples; demographic and other characteristics of each group; and implications

Dual Frame (Landline and Cell RDD) Estimation in a National Survey of Latinos

Explores the implications of conducting surveys by both landline and cell phones for issues of survey bias and undercoverage of Latinos, among whom the cell phone-only population is growing. Discusses sampling and weighting methods

Costs and Benefits of Full Dual-Frame Telephone Survey Designs

Assesses the cost, sample composition, weighting, and substantive effect on survey results involved in interviewing respondents by cell phone, including those with landlines. Includes demographic profiles of cell phone-only, landline-only, and dual users

Measuring Political Knowledge: Putting First Things First

Research in political behavior has increasingly turned to the cognitions underlying attitudes. The simplest of these cognitions are political facts - the bits of information about politics that citizens hold. While other key concepts in political science - partisanship, trust, tolerance - have widely used (if still controversial) measures that facilitate comparisons across time and among studies, the discipline has no generally accepted measure of the public\u27s level of political information. This paper describes the development and testing of survey-based measures of political knowledge, with special attention to the existing items on the National Election Study surveys. In so doing, it illustrates the use of a variety of techniques for item analysis and scale construction. We also present a recommended five-item knowledge index

The Internet and an Informed Citizenry

A new communications environment, driven largely by the Internet and World Wide Web, is rapidly changing the economic, social, and political landscape. According to recent surveys, nearly seven in ten Americans (68 percent) now use computers at least occasionally, six in ten (59 percent) have computers in their homes, and more than half (55 percent) have access to the Internet, 43 percent of these from home. Of the 55 percent of Americans who are wired, more than one-third (36 percent), or 20 percent of the general public, now go online five or more hours per week. These numbers are up significantly from just a few years ago. For example, the number of Americans who say they go online at least occasionally has increased from 21 percent in 1996 to 54 percent in 2000

Stability and Change in the U.S. Public\u27s Knowledge of Politics

The U.S. public\u27s current knowledge about politics is compared with levels of knowledge in the 1940s and 1950s. Fourteen questions asked by Gallup on various surveys from 1945 to 1957 were included on a larger survey of political knowledge conducted by telephone in 1989 with a randomly selected sample of 610 adult U.S. residents. On 8 of the 14 items, the percentage answering correctly in 1989 was higher than in the earlier surveys (by 4-15 points). One item showed an increase of 1 percent, two were down 1 percent, and three others declined by 5 percent, 9 percent, and 10 percent. When level of education is controlled, however, levels of knowledge appear to have declined for most of the items. A reanalysis of some of the original Gallup data is used to estimate the effectiveness of schools in transmitting political information in 1989 compared with the earlier years

What Should Be Learned Through Service Learning?

Service learning is typically distinguished from both community service and traditional civic education by the integration of study with hands-on activity outside the classroom, typically through a collaborative effort to address a community problem (Ehrlich 1999, 246). As such, service learning provides opportunities and challenges for increasing the efficacy of both the teaching and practice of democratic politics. To better understand these opportunities and challenges, it is necessary to make explicit the goals of service learning and to consider how these goals intersect those of more traditional approaches to teaching about government and politics. We believe that one place these sometimes competing models could find common ground is in the learning of factual knowledge about politics