Math 125, Paper One Spring 2023 (5% of Final Grade) Overview For this paper, you will investigate biased questions. After you create your own neutral and

Math 125, Paper One
Spring 2023

(5% of Final Grade)

Overview

For this paper, you will investigate biased questions. After you create your own neutral and

biased questions, you will gather data to examine if the wording you used had an effect on how

people answer.

Here are examples of two different biased questions.1

• According to research from The Journal of the American Medical Association, “stronger

gun policies were associated with decreased rates of firearm homicide, even after

adjusting for demographic and sociologic factors.”2 Do you support or oppose stricter

gun control laws in the United States?

• The United States Constitution says, “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall

not be infringed.” Do you support or oppose stricter gun control laws in the United

States?

Both questions ask about the person’s ideas about gun control, but they position them

differently. (People are likely to have strong opinions on gun control already; I suggest you

choose a less contentious topic.)

A more neutral version would be “do you support or oppose stricter gun control laws in the

United States?” (Note that this is still a little bit biased. There is a small bias because of the word

order – support is first – so in a real-world situation it would be best to change the order

randomly when you asked people, putting support first half the time and oppose first half the

time. Using the word “stricter” will also potentially influence people’s responses. It’s nearly

impossible to write a perfectly neutral question; you’re just going to do the best you can.)

1 Other examples can be found at: https://www.qualtrics.com/blog/writing-survey-questions/ and

http://danielsroar.weebly.com/uploads/5/3/1/4/5314494/pg_46_biased_or_unbiased_practice_answers.pdf

2 From Firearm Laws and Firearm Homicides: A Systematic Review | Firearms | JAMA Internal Medicine | JAMA
Network Information downloaded 6/12/202
(Found via On gun violence, the United States is an outlier | Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation)