Week 12 — Readings & Resources

Introduction to Political Science Free sample edition

Your primary reading is Chapter 12 (in this module). Everything below is the optional, go-deeper layer — pick what helps, skip the rest.

How to use this page

This page has 10 items (4 readings and 6 videos). Allow 55–66 minutes for everything. Each group points back to the matching chapter section and class-session segment, so use the full menu when you want more depth, or take the quick path below.

Every video here has captions: turn them on with the CC button in the player. The chapter covers the same ideas in text.

Pick-one quick path (18–21 min total)

① Who gets asked, and how wide is the margin?

Chapter 12, Section “Size the margin of error: the approximation and its ladder” · Session 1, Segment 3, “Size the wobble” · Remember: only a random sample carries a margin of error, and quadrupling the sample halves it.

Methods 101: Random Sampling — Pew Research Center — a short, captioned explainer from a survey organization on why drawing people at random lets a poll stand for a whole population; use it while working through the Week-12 module overview. (video, 2 min) (captions: creator)
Margin of Error Explained: Why Polls Are Never Exact (Statistics) — Practical stats — a quick tour of the margin of error and diminishing returns; it shows a fuller formula than this course uses, so keep to the approximation of about one over the square root of the sample size. (video, 3 min) (captions: automatic)
Margin of Sampling Error/Credibility Interval — American Association for Public Opinion Research — a three-page note from pollsters' own professional body on what the margin means, why it shrinks slowly as samples grow, and why it does not apply to opt-in online polls; read the first two pages and compare its chart with this week's ladder. (reading, 5–8 min)

② What the margin leaves out

Chapter 12, Section “Separate precision from bias: what the margin leaves out” · Session 1, Segment 4, “Precision is not truth” · Remember: the margin covers sampling error only, so wording and non-response can move a poll without warning, and bigger fixes precision, not bias.

Methods 101: Question Wording — Pew Research Center — a captioned walk through how small changes in a question's words or order can move the answers; as you watch, name one wording problem the margin of error would never catch. (video, 6 min) (captions: creator)
5 key things to know about the margin of error in election polls — Pew Research Center — a short read on what a margin does and does not cover, including why a gap between two numbers carries a larger margin and why weighting adds error; read the first and last of the five key things closely. This builds on Week 10's work with American government and political participation. (reading, 7–10 min)

③ Where opinions come from, and who votes

Chapter 12, Section “Trace how opinions form and who votes” · Session 2, Segment 6, “Where opinions come from, and who votes” · Remember: family, school, peers and life events, and the media shape views, and turnout patterns are correlations, not causes.

Public Opinion: Crash Course Government and Politics #33 — CrashCourse — a fast, captioned look at what public opinion is and how much it shapes what officials do; notice where it treats a pattern as a cause, and ask what evidence that step would need. (video, 10 min) (captions: creator)
Political Socialization — The Citizen Genius Project — a short explainer on how attitudes form through experiences and relationships over a lifetime; as you watch, sort each influence it names under family, school, peers and life events, or the media. (video, 5 min) (captions: automatic)
2024 Presidential Election Voting and Registration Tables Now Available — U.S. Census Bureau — a federal statistics release on who reported registering and voting, with turnout broken out by education and other characteristics; read the highlights, find one pattern, and say why it is a correlation and not by itself a cause. (reading, 3–5 min)

④ What do the media do to opinion?

Chapter 12, Section “Weigh media effects: agenda-setting, framing, echo chambers” · Session 2, Segment 7, “About, not what” · Remember: agenda-setting is about what we think about, not what we conclude, and every media effect comes with critics and limits.

Media Institution: Crash Course Government and Politics #44 — CrashCourse — a captioned look at the news media as a political institution and how coverage shapes what voters and officials pay attention to; listen for agenda-setting and framing, and for any claim stated without its critics. Stop here before comparing countries; Week 13 takes that up. (video, 9 min) (captions: creator)

Optional one-stop reference (free online reference)

Americans and AI 2026: Methodology — Pew Research Center — the methodology page for the real poll this week reads; find the sample size, the field dates, the panel, and the stated margin, then stop unless you want more on weighting. (reading, 5–8 min)

Heads-up (links rot): these point to outside sites that occasionally move or rename pages. If a link ever fails, tell your instructor and use the reference above in the meantime.

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