There’s a TV show entitled Family Feud that we’re all familiar with.  The contestants try to guess the top answers to a topic or question on the board with the host revealing the answers by shouting – Survey says!

My lectures in Research Methodologies includes Surveys and Questionnaires.

I will not make this blog complicated.  It is not a discourse in mathematics and statistics.  While there are people that will pretend to know about this topic, I am writing this for you.  Sharing it among the misinformed can help guide them in the interpretation and utilisation of surveys, as well as educate them on the the advantages and disadvantages of relying on surveys as a mathematical basis for outcome analysis.

If you’re ready to get educated, read on.

What is a survey?

It’s a research method used to collect information about a population of interest.

It is a reflection of information of a single point in time. TODAY. In short, it means that a survey today cannot be extrapolated with absolute certainty to something that has not happened yet.  Many circumstances that change will with certainty affect outcomes.

Let us use the last presidential election as a classic example on how fickle minded surveys are.  The Presidential race was a shoo-in for Vice President Jejomar Binay.  When Grace Poe threw the gauntlet, there was a shift of tide. The dark horse Rodrigo Duterte won that election. You could tell that when the people marched to the polls, Poe was going to slip further down the road.  Roxas landed a far second from Duterte. But the Liberal Party knew that from the get go.  Unless Poe gave up her candidacy, there would be no way Roxas would win over Duterte. And Poe should have known that a neophyte would never win this election.

The Vice-Presidential race saw independent candidate Chiz Escudero at the forefront at the start of the surveys.  Subsequently BongBong Marcos began to climb slowly to eventually lead the pack.  A month before the Vice-Presidential debate, the young Marcos was ahead. During the debates, Allan Peter Cayetano practically delivered the Vice-Presidency to Robredo on a silver platter. His maligning the young Marcos and resurrecting the Martial Law regime and the billions that they stole provided the setback needed to push Robredo to the forefront.  That one and only debate was the final nail on the coffin.  The aftermath of that debate was a winning moment for a dark horse like Robredo.  Even the surveys agreed. A week before the elections, Robredo and Marcos were statistically tied. Marcos should have learned from the last presidential election where Roxas lost to Binay.

It is important to know that there are various types of surveys. There are also various ways of conducting a survey. And finally, there are many ways a sampling method is done.

Because of the complexities in making sure that a reliable survey is well designed, a poorly done survey, is a biased one. It is important to remember that bias sampling is the best way to skew data to favour desired outcome.  Appropriate randomisation in order to clearly reflect the true population being surveyed is vital to the reliability and accuracy of any survey.

Remember – a survey is made up of a sample from the population.  Unlike a census, where each and every person inclusible is included, a survey utilises only a sample.  That sample SHOULD be highly representative of the population the survey intends to address.

Self-administered vs. enablers

Surveys (and questionnaires) can be self-administered. That means that I give you a piece of paper or ask you a question online and you just provide the answer.  It’s usually answerable by multiple choice(s).

Then there are those that use enablers or enumerators.  In short, there are people that are sent to the field and these people conduct the interviews by asking questions to the respondent.  Using enablers is an additional layer of bias.  How the interviewee replies to the question and how the respondent is approached by the enabler can affect the response.  How the enabler chooses the respondent when the actual respondent targeted is not there is the largest bias called convenience sampling.

http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/specialreports/522054/sws-and-pulse-asia-s-methods-or-why-you-ve-yet-to-answer-election-surveys/story/

Leo Laroza, senior survey research and communications specialist from the Social Weather Station provided the methodology the SWS uses in undertaking their surveys.  From choosing 1,200 (because it’s an internationally accepted number sample size?!? is a lame answer) as the number of respondents of voting age. From the way the stratified random sampling is conducted, the likelihood of the survey results being accurate and reliable should be considered.  And they peg their errors at +/- a certain percentage.  The basis for the percentage error should be disclosed, particularly with how many hits and misses they had for an enabler assisted survey.

Their constraints on areas that are not readily reachable compared to the more accessible ones introduces bias already.  Another bias is on dividing the 1,200 into 4 areas – Metro Manila, Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.  Then appropriating 300 subjects for each of these four areas, and further subdividing these 300 into 60 barangays (which means 5 people per barangay for Metro Manila, the rest of Luzon, the whole of the Visayas, and the whole of Mindanao).

Interpreting surveys

Surveys are information guide. Taken now. A snapshot of time.

Reflective of data from a sample that may be representative of the sentiment of the population depending on whether the sampling process was appropriately conducted or not.

The results can be interpreted to fit what what one wants to sell.

Let’s not rely too much on surveys to check how the landscape of the political climate in the country is evolving. The better indicator is our moral compass.

It is barely 7 months into the midterm election.  We need to focus on the ball.  Those numbers, remain unreliable until the final candidates are announced.  Remember, it is not the opinion alone that matters.  It is going to the polls and showing that there is strength in your vote that will change the landscape of politics.

Our votes are the only opinions that count.

Ever since he passed away, I took care of her.

I think that is my purpose in life.

I saw the signs.

At first she couldn’t remember things. Or the medications she’s on.  It was mixed with difficulty in trying to say what needed to be said.  She rarely forgot those simple words.  One day, it just escaped her.  The little lapses – it’s 9PM and she thought it was morning, or she needed to go to the toilet but didn’t know where it was when it’s right near her bed, or she had problems in handling money.  There were days when I’d tell her than she can’t be spending things left and right.  She’d look at me and ask, “what things”? And then there were those changes in mood and behaviour.  Cranky all the time.  Or simply staring into space.

Everyone else thought that ageing had just caught up with her.

I had taken her to the doctor. When the doctor gave the diagnosis, I knew my world would be different. I pored through all the information I could get hold on to.

Until some things dramatically changed.  She began to forget more often and now had more difficulty orienting to time and place. There would be days that she would stare at me and ask who I am. Her hygiene began to take a downhill course and when I would home from work, the household help would complain on her mood and behaviour.  Late one night, someone knocked on our front door.  She was found wandering at the neighbourhood convenience store in her nightgown barefoot buying a pack of cigarettes.  On the car ride home, she looked at me and said, “your father was left in the store”.

Like a jilted lover who had grown tired and weary of the relationship, we just drifted apart.

I knew then that she didn’t live here anymore.

And it would be a long goodbye.

Many of us have come across similar stories of family and friends whose loved ones have dementia.  Alzheimer’s is one form of dementia.

A person with dementia has difficulty with two of the following:

• memory
• communication and speech
• focus and concentration
• reasoning and judgement
• visual perception (unable to tell the difference in colours or detect movement or sees things that are not there)

Various conditions can give rise to dementia – as part of the ageing process OR medications like narcotics, anti-anxiety pills, anti-epileptics, antipsychotics, to name a few.

Alzheimer’s Disease (AD)

Is the most common type of dementia.

While it is more commonly seen in the elderly, early onset Alzheimer’s is not uncommon. Early onset AD is usually familial and accounts for half of the early onset patients.

It is progressive.  Meaning it gets worse over time. Memory loss may initially be mild, but symptoms worsen over time. It gets more difficult to carry on conversations or daily activities. Then there is the confusion.  Even they become bewildered at where they are and in the confusion, become angry and the mood changes escalate.

Let’s be clear about this.  Alzheimer’s Disease is not a normal part of ageing. 

AD worsens over time. Those with Alzheimer’s live an average of eight years from the time of diagnosis (survival range is 4 – 20 years depending on age and other health conditions).

There is currently no cure but treatment for symptoms are available and extensive research in the past years has made some progress.  While treatment options CANNOT stop Alzheimer’s from progressing, it can temporarily slow down the the worsening of symptoms of dementia and improve the quality of life for those with Alzheimer’s and their caregivers.

“There is much pain to endure when watching a loved one suffer with Alzheimer’s Disease.  There is the pain of perpetual grief.  There is the raw wound of continual loss.  There is the struggle to preserve dignity and the desire to respect the present but cling to the past.  In the midst of the heartache there is a small glimmer of light that exists to remind us of the things that Alzheimer’s cannot take away – the warmth of a touch, the importance of smiles and laughter, and the knowledge of what it truly means to experience unconditional love and acceptance.”

For more information on what AD is, http://www.alz.org is a good reference site.

(The story above is a fictional one.  But it can happen to anyone of us.)

I have no political inclinations. Like many Filipinos, when it comes to political affiliations, I have no conflict of interest.

I do not like it when people call each other “dilawan” or “ka-DDS”.  We are Filipinos.  One nation.  Whether you are an oligarch or a pauper, whether you are a drug lord or a communist rebel, whether you are an OFW or a farmer in Benguet – the Philippines is our motherland. Patriotism should never be territorial.  Just because the president or other government officials hail from a province or region does not mean you have to die for them. No other agenda should be put on the forefront of politics except the greater good of the people.

When you want to help people, you tell them the truth.

When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.

I am writing this for everyone, regardless of political stand, who use social media in the dissemination of information, to think and do a bit of research before they share. To share the full story and not pick up bits and pieces to fit an agenda. If there is nothing good to share or when you doubt on the information that you are sharing, DO NOT PRESS CLICK AND SHARE. Sharing wrong information is perpetuating evil.  It is wrong to think that it does no harm passing around twisted lies.  Peddling lies is being in connivance with the devil. The last I recall was that we are citizens of this nation and not a cult for some government officials.

I have friends and colleagues who have lost all critical thinking because of political affiliation.  And that makes me sad.  They were intelligent people who got washed away with the tide.  We need to respect each other’s political beliefs.  But a spade must be called a spade when it is.  Credit should be given where credit is due.

Of all ignorance, the ignorance of the educated is the most dangerous.  Not only are educated people more likely to have more influence, they are the last people to suspect that they don’t know what they are talking about when they go outside their narrow fields.

We all know that it takes more than the six (6) years of an administration to see the fruits of its labor.  There are projects of every administration that has either a sordid history laden with graft and corruption or one where we all look back and recognise the visionary in them.  Most of that, however, can only be appreciated after the term of the administration is over. It takes years to build infrastructure – skyways, road, airports, subways, etc.  The layers of governmental approval – from bidding to construction – is a logistic nightmare in itself.  By the time any sitting president will see his or her flagship projects, MANY OF THEM will be seen in the next administration.

I am writing to the people who share posts about infrastructure projects being credited to the current administration, when the projects were started by the previous administration and completed only in this administration OR were completed in the final year of the previous administration and were not given due credit.

I am writing to the people who use fake pictures to promote success when that success story never happened in our country.

I am not a fan of PNoy. He had his own lapses in governance.  And I can name many. But whatever credit is due him, let’s not subvert the incontrovertible truth of the achievements of the previous administration, particularly when it comes to infrastructure or disaster preparedness.  Every administration could have used the lessons the previous administrations had in building and rebuilding a country. There is no perfect leader.  There has been no one that has endeared the people. Using these lessons will chart us in more concrete directions.

Social media is being misused for the gullible plenty.  What the current administration can do is focus on short term goals – the economy.  That, my friends, is tangible success.

Since this is an era when many people are concerned about “fairness” and “social justice”, what is your ‘fair share’ of what someone else worked for?

Let the real infrastructure progress of the current administration be reflected when the projects have been completed.  When Boracay is finally open and cleared of all that stench and filth, then kudos to those responsible for the clean up drive.

The pressing issue is the economy hitting the shitty ceiling.  The major bravado of the current administration should be to work at what are tangible solutions to the economic woes of the country now.  When corruption and incompetence are in collusion with governance, we are all headed for a collision course with an economic meltdown because we were all focused on issues that were personal and formed background noise.

Let’s face it, you cannot turn your head away from issues hounding appointees who have been accused of corruption and stay silent about it.

You cannot look the other way with appointees who disappoint and drag the president down because of their feeling of entitlement and expect the public to love them. The president was elected to govern for the greater good of its people – friend or foe, rich or poor.  The allegiance of every Filipino is to its country.

One of the consequences of such notions as “entitlements” is that people who have contributed nothing to society feel that society owes them something, apparently just for being nice enough to grace us with their presence.

Let’s put some sensibility and civility back on the table.  There is no shame in recognising our faults and short comings.  Our disillusions and misplaced sense of allegiance.  Let us give credit to where credit is due.  And respect where respect should be.

Enough with peddling these lies, make believe stories and half-truths. Accountability is mandatory for all actions – no exceptions to the rule. If you have nothing better to say, or share, don’t.

Remember: Right is right even when no one is doing it.  Wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it.

(All quotations are from the Politics of Thomas Sowell).