New URI poll gauges Rhode Island attitudes on education, politics
The poll is the first from the Rhode Island Survey Initiative, a newly launched effort by a team of URI researchers to gauge public opinion across the state.
Led by
URI’s Harrington School of Communication and Media; Department of Political
Science; College of Arts and Sciences; and Social Science Institute for
Research, Education, and Policy, researchers plan to issue one poll each year,
surveying a wide range of issues impacting life in the state.
“This initiative grew out of a lack of regular opinion polling specific to Rhode Island and the issues that most impact the state,” said Ammina Kothari, director of the Harrington School and professor of journalism.
“Funding
interdisciplinary initiatives with empirical outputs that can be integrated
into our teaching and shared with the wider community is a good use of our
resources. We hope the survey data will be a tool for other researchers,
policymakers, the media, and others interested in understanding where Rhode
Islanders stand on key issues.”
For the
first iteration of the poll, the researchers surveyed via the internet a
representative sample of 500 Rhode Islanders ages 18 and older between Aug. 17
and Sept. 6, 2023. The full poll results can be found on the initiative’s website.
Among
the key findings:
- Attitudes toward
public education: A solid majority, 68%, said
state or local funding levels for K-12 education should increase.
Forty-two percent of respondents said they were very or somewhat satisfied
with their community’s K-12 schools, while 21% said they were not very or
not at all satisfied. Education initiatives recently introduced in the
Rhode Island General Assembly—including a constitutional right to
education, universal pre-K, and free lunches in all schools—enjoyed
widespread support.
- Rhode Island
political issues: Most respondents favor increased
state-level spending on education, housing, infrastructure, and aid to the
poor. Only 17% view the Rhode Island economy as strong or somewhat strong.
Seventy-three percent said it was important for Rhode Island to invest in
blue economy initiatives like offshore wind farms and other economic
sectors linked to the ocean or coasts.
- Rhode Island politics
and elections: Slightly more than half of
respondents said they have a great deal or a moderate amount of trust that
Rhode Island elections are fair. Regarding the governor’s approval rating,
27% of respondents approve of how Gov. Dan McKee handles his job, while
27% disapprove and 45% said they neither approve nor disapprove or don’t
know. Trust in government was low at all levels. Only 10% of respondents
said they have “a great deal” or “a lot” of trust in the federal
government; 11% in state government; and 14% in local government.
- Media and
politics: Most survey respondents, 58%, say they have at least a moderate
amount of trust in traditional media outlets, while fewer, 31%, trust the
news they get on social media. Sixty-nine percent of respondents said they
get their election news from local sources, 66% said they use national
sources, and 26% use international sources.
Faculty
and students from URI identified the survey’s issue areas, formulated questions,
and analyzed the results. The poll was administered by YouGov, an international
internet-based market research and data analytics firm. The poll has a margin
of error of plus or minus five percentage points.
More polling to come
Researchers
associated with the Rhode Island Survey Initiative plan to conduct at least one
poll per year. While each poll will include different focus areas, repeated
questions across polls will give researchers a chance to measure how attitudes
in Rhode Island evolve over time.
Julie
Keller, an associate professor of sociology and director of the Social Science
Institute for Research, Education, and Policy, said the survey initiative
reflects the institute’s goal of providing evidence-based insights to
communities across Rhode Island.
“The
initiative enhances the institute’s experiential learning opportunities for URI
students while strengthening our ability to help inform decision-making across
the state,” Keller said. “It’s exciting to consider the many potential avenues
for collaborative projects among faculty, students, community-based
organizations, businesses, and government agencies.”
The
project has provided experiential learning opportunities for URI students, who
helped to select issues to be included in the survey and craft questions.
“We’re
able to give our students hands-on experience in the public opinion research
process,” said Emily Lynch, an associate teaching professor of political
science. “For students to be able to apply what they learn in the classroom in
a real-world setting is incredibly valuable.”
One of
those students was David Rudolph, a senior political science major who worked
on the survey through a College of Arts and Sciences Student Fellowship, which
provides funding for students to pursue summer research and creative
opportunities.
“I
couldn’t think of a better capstone for my college career,” Rudolph said. “Knowing
that citizens, scholars, and elected officials will use data from a project I
helped create is truly rewarding. To have a role in shaping public policy has
real-world implications that’ll last well beyond my graduation.”