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(Unverified)Aug 21st 2008 10:11PM

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That Marshal asked only ~600 people is not, in itself, indicative of a poor survey. If this sampling was a truly representative one (equivalent of asking a random cross-section of Americans), it may be entirely sufficient.

The problem is that a true representative sampling is difficult to achieve for these questions. For one, a sampling frame does not exist for Internet users. You cannot get a list of all Internet users to poll.

They would have to reveal their full research methodology to properly critique it. But it sounds like they posted a link to a survey on their website, which visitors could (or could not) participate in. This would be problematic, and raise questions about if and how these findings on Marshal visitors can be extrapolated to the population at large.

In other words, it's not the size of your sampling that matters, it's what you do with your survey that counts ;)

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