Survey research

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Abstract

The influence of parents has always been considered a significant factor in the development of children. This study proposes those influences extend into the development of individual political views, with the relationship based on the parent an individual identifies as the predominant parental figure. The hypothesis of this study is that among students enrolled in SS3375-XTIA T3 2017 at Troy University, most would report their individual political ideologies reflect similar ideologies of their predominant parental figure. Utilizing an on-line survey consisting of 10 questions, 29 participants were asked to compare their political views with those of their predominant parent. Responses were charted and analyzed. Analysis of the data collected did support the hypothesis, as the majority of the participants did claim their individual political views were similar to those of their predominant parent. Additionally, the data suggested a gender relationship influence between a predominant parent and child of same gender may exist and could be considered in the development of further studies.

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Political Views: Parental Influence on Individual Political Ideologies

The effects of parenting are an often studied and it is a common belief that parents have a significant influence on the development of the children they raise. During developing years, parents can determine our exposure to the world and how to interpret those experiences. Generally, parents seek to instill the values, virtues and knowledge they feel are important for their children to achieve their definition of success in the world. Once children grow and become independent, the majority of their life knowledge was obtained from their parents. Often, you can hear people make a remark, “I sound just like my mom/dad.”

So how do the political views of parental figures influence the children they raise? The purpose of this study is to determine if there is a relationship between the political ideologies of parents and their children. More specifically, it looks for a relationship with the predominant parent. The proposed hypothesis for this study is that among students enrolled in SS3375-XTIA T3 2017, most would report their individual political ideologies reflect similar ideologies of their predominant parental figure.

Methods

The participants of the survey are all students at Troy University enrolled in the on-line course, SS3375-XTIA, T3 2017 and were required to respond to the survey as part of their course requirements. A 10 question survey was developed to test the hypothesis and collect data from participants. The survey was constructed and deployed on-line utilizing the website SurveyMonkey.com. A web link to survey was posted in the course’s discussion board through

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which the participants could take the survey. The questions were developed without reference to specific party affiliations as individuals may or may not identify with a particular political party. Instead, the questions were categorized into political ideologies of left, middle and right. Additionally, predominant parental figure was used to avoid exclusion of participants that may not have had a traditional parental relationship.

Questions 1 and 2 asked the gender of the participant’s predominant parental figure gender and how the respondent would categorize the parental figure’s political views. Question 3 asked to identify how the remainder of the parental figure’s household held its political beliefs in relationship to the predominate parent. Question 4 asked how the respondent would categorize their political views at age 18, question 5 asked to for their views today compared to age 18, and question 6 asked to compare their views today to those of their parental figure. The age of 18 was used as the baseline to coincide with the legal age of voting in the United States. Question 7 utilized the common theme of gun control and asked the respondent their view on the theme in relation to that of their parental figure. Question 8, 9 and 10 asked the respondent to identify the category of their political views, their gender and their age, respectively.

Results

29 students from class SS3375-XTIA T3 2017 responded to the survey. Of the 29 respondents, 23 students answered all 10 questions, 3 students answered 9 of the questions, 2 students answered 5 questions, and 1 student only answered 2 questions. The tables below represent the responses provided in terms of numbers per selection and percentage.

Question 1 – Is/was your predominant parental figure? 29 Responses, 0 Skipped

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This question resulted in a majority of students indicating a female as the predominant parental figure, which would correspond with a traditional family dynamic.

Question 2 – While growing up, how would you classify your predominant parental figure’s political views? 27 Responses, 2 Skipped

A small number of respondents viewed their parental figure’s political ideologies as Left. A majority response was Right with Middle close behind.

Question 3 – While growing up, how would you classify the rest of the household’s political views? 26 Responses, 3 Skipped

The majority of respondents believed the entire household maintained similar political views as their predominant parental figure.

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Question 4 – When you turned 18 years of age, how would you classify your political views?

25 Responses, 4 Skipped

At 18 years of age, most responded as having similar views as their parent.

Question 5 – Compared to when you were 18 years old, how would you classify your political views today? 26 Responses, 3 Skipped

At 18, the majority had political views similar to their predominant parental figure. However, as participants continued to grow and age, their responses indicate they began to develop additional viewpoints that were slightly different from their parent.

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Question 6 – Today, how would you classify your political views compared to that of your predominant parental figure’s views? 26 Responses, 3 Skipped

The majority of responses indicate similar views as their parent.

Question 7 – In regards to your views on gun control, which statement is most accurate?

25 Responses, 4 Skipped

The results of this questions helps to validate responses to Question 6. Although percentages are different, the number of responses for SAME is identical between the two questions.

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Question 8 – Do you consider your political views to be? 28 Responses, 1 Skipped

This question does reflect a good representation of views among the participants.

Question 9 – Are you? 29 Responses, 0 Skipped

Question 10 – What is your age? 28 Responses, 1 Skipped

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Responses to this question reflected a wide range of ages participating in online studies.

While compiling the results, the following was noticed. From Question 6 and Table 6, 17 respondents claimed their political views and those of their predominant parental figure were similar. Of the 17, 12 students (10 female and 2 male) identified a female predominant parental figure and 5 students (1 female and 4 male) identified a male predominant parental figure.

Table 11

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Discussion

The most significant limitation to this study would be population representation. The number of respondents (29) is not sufficient enough to produce enough data to accurately apply the statistics to a larger population. Additionally, all the respondents were students enrolled in SS3375-XTIA T3 2017 and were not sampled to accurately reflect any specific population. However, the respondents did provide an excellent opportunity to test the hypothesis and survey questions. 10% of the respondents skipped 5 or more questions and an additional 10% skipped 1 question. Therefore, a reevaluation of the questions should be considered rewording or adding additional answer options such as “I don’t know” or “I do not wish to answer” to reduce the amount of skipped questions. Gender relationship could also be incorporated into future studies as data collected from this study and shown in Table 11, indicate a possible relationship influence on political views, especially between a participant and parent of same gender. However, additional data would be required to support this relationship.

Although the sample is only representative of the class SS3375-XTIA T3 2017, when looking at questions 3,4,6 and 7 not only do the participants believe their political views are similar to their predominant parental figure, they believe the entire household’s ideologies are also similar to the predominant parental figure’s. Of the 4 questions, question 4 had the lowest majority response of 56%, while questions 3 (61.54%), 6 (65.38%) and 7 (68%) reflected almost 2/3 of the participants identifying their views as similar. Therefore, I believe the hypothesis, among students enrolled in SS3375-XTIA T3 2017, most would report their individual political ideologies reflect similar ideologies of their predominant parental figure, was supported by this study.