2010-01-27-皮尤-Senate_Legislative_Process_A_Mystery_To_Many_11页_59kb

Political Knowledge Report Summary (January 28, 2010)

1 Key Findings

In the Pew Research Center's News IQ Quiz (January 2010):

• Most Americans got only half of 12 multiple-choice questions correct on average (score: 5.3 out of 12).
• The most difficult question: Senate requires 60 votes to break filibuster (only 26% knew this).
• The easiest question: U.S. imports two-thirds of its oil (57% knew this).

2 Political Knowledge Trends

• Democrats scored slightly lower than Republicans on average (5.9 vs. 4.9 correct answers).
• Republicans performed better on questions about Senate leadership (GOP senators voted on health bill, Harry Reid as majority leader).
• Democrats had only slight advantage on one question: identifying the number of women on the Supreme Court.

3 Demographics Differences

• Age: Middle-aged and older respondents (50+) outperformed younger adults on almost all questions; the age gap reached 34 percentage points on identification of the Yemen as the bombing suspect's training location and 34 points on identifying Harry Reid as Senate majority leader.
• Gender: Men outperformed women (average scores 6.0 vs. 4.6) especially on economic topics, but no gender divide existed on Supreme Court women question.
• Education: College graduates scored highest (7.3 average) followed by some college (5.4) and those without college degree (3.9).

4 American Public Knowledge Performance by Question

5 Exception: Stephen Colbert

Despite expected lower performance on political topics, young adults (under 30) outperformed the general public at recognizing Stephen Colbert as a "comedian and TV host" (49% correct, higher than the 38% among older adults).

6 Expert Analysis Notes

• The quiz was designed to mirror questions from the same period's national poll
• Sample included 1003 adults surveyed by telephone landlines/cell phones January 14-17, 2010
• Margin of error ±4 percentage points at 95% confidence level
• Trends show public slightly less knowledgeable than a year earlier (71% scored ≥6 in March 2009 quiz)
• Quiz performance tracks adult demographic and partisan identification patterns