Wednesday, December 4, 2013

How Not To Survey People

It's received a boatload of attention, the Catholic Church's attempt to gauge parish-level attitudes in advance of a global meeting of bishops. You can read a recent story here.

It's also a terrific example of how not to survey, or poll, or ask, or gauge, or whatever the hell it is the Church is trying to do. Mixed methods, mixed samples. It's a mess. Some questionnaires online, some the bishop will just fill out, some sent only to priests but not laity. It's more than a mess. It's result will be misleading, an almost textbook example of how not to do this.

As a practicing Catholic, I'm not surprised. Just take the Pew data, church leaders, rather than trying to cook your own. It'd be more intellectually honest. Except we know you'd not like the results.

No comments: