Student-led civic poll to be highlighted at Thursday 'Face Off' debate

November 18, 2014  


WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — A national political poll led by undergraduate students from the Purdue Institute for Civic Communication found that older voters have more civic knowledge. And these results will be discussed as part of Thursday’s (Nov. 20) debate between Howard Dean, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and Michael Steele, former chairman of the Republican National Committee.

The poll results also showed that the least understood branch of government is the judicial with fewer than half of Americans, 47 percent, understanding its function.

“There seemed to be a better understanding of the other two branches of government, executive and legislative,” said Cecilia Daizovi, a senior from Fort Wayne, Indiana, studying communication and a member of the PICC Polling Unit.  “Nevertheless, one-third of those polled did not know the function of those two branches as defined by the Constitution.”

The poll of 1,110 American adults, conducted in partnership with the pollster Penn Schoen Berland, was completed in advance of the midterm elections. It posed 10 questions that might appear on a naturalization test for citizenship. The poll was created and designed as part of PICC, which also is hosting the debate between Dean and Steele from 5:30-6:30 p.m. at the Purdue Memorial Union North Ballroom. The event is free and open to the public.

When divided by age into three groups, respondents aged 50 and older answered all 10 questions correctly more often – 75 percent of the time – than respondents aged 35-49 and 18-34. The other age groups responded correctly to all 10 questions 65 percent and 60 percent of the time respectively.  

“Age made a significant difference in whether or not respondents answered correctly in nine out of 10 questions,” said Allison Tucker, a senior from Warsaw, Indiana, studying communication and Spanish, and a member of the PICC Polling Unit. “The only question where age did not make a significant difference was, ‘What is one right or freedom in the First Amendment.’ And no matter the age, only 46 percent of all respondents answered the question, ‘What does the judicial branch do?’ correctly. In an age where media, particularly television, is depended on by many for their news, it makes sense that the population would know less about the Supreme Court, which doesn’t allow cameras.”

In addition to age, the PICC Polling Unit also analyzed the results based on gender, socio-economic status, race and political parties. Some of these results will be discussed during Thursday’s debate, which will be moderated by Steve Scully, political editor at C-SPAN.

Penn Schoen Berland conducted the online interviews from Oct. 1-3. The margin of error for this study is plus or minus 2.94 percentage points at a 95 percent confidence level.

“The goal of our poll was to gain experience for our students in measuring civic knowledge and analyzing strengths and gaps,” said Ambassador Carolyn Curiel, PICC executive director and clinical professor in the Brian Lamb School of Communication, who has worked with C-SPAN and its founder Brian Lamb to create classes, forums and other programs for undergraduate students.

The PICC Polling Unit plans to expand its civic polling to create an index measuring citizenship leading up to the 2016 presidential election, and the students selected for this project represent majors of communication, political science, history and engineering. Funding for this project is from the Bill Daniels Fund of Denver. The Purdue Institute for Civic Communication is a nonpartisan, university-wide initiative in experiential and applied learning. Through classes on campus and in Washington, D.C., and in forums planned and produced by students, the institute brings real-world communication and policy leaders together with students.

Also collaborating on the polling project is Glenn Sparks, a professor of communication, and Brooke Robertshaw, assessment and data analyst, from Purdue’s Office of Institutional Research Assessment and Effectiveness. 

Writer: Amy Patterson Neubert, 765-494-9723, apatterson@purdue.edu 

Sources: Carolyn Curiel, curiel@purdue.edu

Chris Doty, executive assistant, cdoty@purdue.edu 

Related websites:

College of Liberal Arts 

Related news release:

Former Democratic, Republican leaders to 'Face Off' at Purdue 

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