The Center for American Progress to study public attitudes toward sports teamsthat expressed opinions on issues that could be controversial, such as LGBT issues. One research question they were interested in was: "To what degree do people believe that professional sports teams should take public stances on social causes?"
In general, respondents either "somewhat agreed" (33.2 percent) or "strongly agreed" (19.3 percent) that "professional sports teams should utilize their platforms to advocate for causes they believe in." One in three respondents (30 percent) stated they were neutral on this issue or had "no opinion." Among respondents who identified as men, 46.5 percent either "somewhat agreed" or "strongly agreed" that sports teams should use their platforms to advocate for causes, while 33 percent had "no opinion." Among respondents who identified as women, 60.4 percent either "somewhat agreed" or "strongly agreed" with that statement, with another 25.6 percent stating that they were neutral or had "no opinion."
The study also gave the following information about their survey:
The results presented above are from a convenience sample of 367 respondents recruited using Amazon Mechanical Turk, an online platform that allows for the purposeful sampling of respondents who meet relevant criteria. This survey-hosting website has been shown to be an efficient platform for gathering reliable data from diverse populations...44.1 percent of respondents were between the ages of 18 and 29, 38.3 percent were between the ages of 30 and 44, and 17.8 percent were above the age of 44. 10.4 percent of respondents identified as "strong Democrat," 26.0 percent as "Democrat," 16.7 percent as "independent-lean Democrat," 18.9 percent as "independent," 8.7 percent as "independent-lean Republican," 10.4 percent as "Republican," and 4.6 as "strong Republican."
a. Was this survey a statistically unbiased answer to the question "To what degree do people believe that professional sports teams should take public stances on social causes?" If so, explain why; if not, describe and explain the likely direction of the bias.
b. Suppose an interested party gives you a reasonable budget to carry out a more rigorous study of the Center for American Progress’ research question. Describe briefly the study you would perform.