In about two weeks the 38th edition of the Mountain States Poll will be released by Montana State University Billings, giving us a glimpse of what Montanans are thinking about issues and elected officials.
On several October mornings on a MSU-Billings campus classroom, you can hear the conversations between students and Montanans on what they think on the issues.
The questions, the calls and the analysis--all done by students in Dr. Hope Dewell Gentry’s Media, Public Opinion, Polling upper level political science class.
“We have a handful of questions that we ask year to year, “ explained Dewell Gentry. “For example, you’re always going to be asked how our feel about Congress and how you feel about the current President and things like that. But the fun questions as I kind of think of them are written by the students.”
The phone calls are to randomly selected Montana phone numbers. Data from the calls will be combined with responses from online polling.
“ So now there is a higher likelihood that you’re going to be able to contact someone who is in the 18-20 to 25- year-old range because you do online surveys and things anymore. And they weren’t necessarily answering the landline phones. But at the same time there are difficulties in trying to make it a randomized survey . You have to use different techniques to make sure it stays scientific.” Dewell Gentry said.
For student Naybe Nava Hernandez the interaction with the people on the phone can be surprising.
“I mean it’s just crazy….its just wild how political people can be sometimes,” said Nava Hernandez.
How cooperative callers would be varied explained Zoe Zizz.
“I guess its seeing how cooperative some people are and how uncooperative some people are, and they don’t even want to talk to you,” Zizz said.
This survey work has been part of MSU Billings political science curriculum since 1989 when it was Eastern Montana College.
This, the 38th edition of the Mountain States Poll, will be released October 28.
