Thursday, September 22, 2005

Yale women, continued...the survey methodology

Came across this over at Gelf Magazine and I just had to share -- everything you wanted to know about (cough cough) "survey methodology" as practiced by some at the New York Times. Quoting from David Goldenberg:

One likely reason that Louise Story came to the conclusion in her front page New York Times article Tuesday that many Ivy League women would rather be stay-at-home moms than part of the workforce: A skewed sample. She arrives at a conclusion about “women at the nation’s most elite colleges” based on spot interviews with students from a few Ivy League schools and then a survey with students at one school: her own. Last school year, Story sent out a 37-question survey to a group of freshman and senior women at Yale University, her (and my) alma mater. While it is indeed possible that 60% of those who replied said “they planned to cut back on work or stop working entirely” when they had kids, as Story writes, it's doubtful that those who replied are representative of all Ivy League women.

So I take back what I said about Yale -- David gets it.

No comments: