Reading into statistics

I read an interesting article over the weekend. Printed in The Financial, it was a recap of a Rasmussen Reports telephone survey that covered a variety of topics having to do with the Obama Administration. Included were questions regarding the recent passage of what is now known as the Healthy, Hungry Free Kids Act.

The headline on the article was “Most Americans Balk at Federal Control of Public School Nutrition.” According to the survey, only 23% of adults believe the federal government should set nutritional standards for school foodservice. The largest number, 31%, said they’d prefer parent-teacher groups to have that responsibility. Another 17% said state governments should handle it, and an equal percentage said it should be up to local legislators. Finally, 12% said they aren’t sure.

Breaking down the data further, the report stated that people under the age of 40 are more likely to support federal regulation, while older adults prefer to give parents and teachers that responsibility. African-Americans are more supportive of the federal government, while whites are more likely to say parents and teachers should have control.

Surveys are interesting tools; they can—and I say this even as the editor of a publication that prides itself on its surveys—be manipulated to make almost any point the surveyors want. For example, this people who wrote this survey appeared to take the attitude that Americans do believe someone should control what our children in school are served—the choice of “no one” doesn’t appear to have been asked. That in itself skewed the survey from the beginning.

Now, I don’t have a copy of the survey. But going solely on the data that were reported, I saw a couple of different ways to view the report. For example, you could argue that the data suggest that Americans do believe government should play a role in regulating school nutrition, since 57% said that some group of elected officials should set standards. Or, you could say that 88% of Americans believe that regulations are essential in school foodservice.

We ourselves know how the data in our surveys can be interpreted. We often struggle over how to ask certain questions to ensure that we gather the most valuable information for our readers. But we know that, no matter how simple or uncontroversial the subject matter, the results are really no more than food for thought. The numbers often only give us reason to delve a little more deeply into a subject.

Finally, no survey should ever be taken at face value. Who is asking the questions is most times as important to know as what questions are being asked.