Kumar 1

Sona Kumar 26110247

Professor Farhana Shahzad

SS100 WnC S9

19th November 2022

Annotated Bibliographies

Miller, Melissa K., and Shannon K. Orr. “Experimenting with a ‘Third Way’ in Political

Knowledge Estimation.” The Public Opinion Quarterly, vol. 72, no. 4, 2008, pp. 768–80.

JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25167664. Accessed 18 Nov. 2022. Print.

Published by an oxford university press, The article is from The Public Opinion Quarterly, the

leading interdisciplinary journal for its validity, construction, and analytical approaches. The

article is about the different strategies for measuring political knowledge as survey questions

about various government and political matters usually measure knowledge. Mondak

discouraged the "don't know" strategy when respondents were uncertain about the correct

answer. He conducted a random web survey of 965 undergraduates with three strategies. One

encourages "don't-know" responses, the second discourages "don't know" responses, and the

third omits "don't know" responses. The summary index reveals the highest incorrect rate was for

the don't Know-omitted strategy (29 percent), and the lowest incorrect rate was for the don't

know-encouraged strategy (22 percent). This research suggested that people are partially aware

or unaware of the political control system in which they live.

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Michael X. Delli Carpini, and Scott Keeter. “Measuring Political Knowledge: Putting First

Things First.” American Journal of Political Science, vol. 37, no. 4, 1993, pp. 1179–206.

JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2111549. Print.

The article is from the American journal of political science. The article describes constructing

valid and reliable tests to measure general political knowledge. The article substantiates the

issues that occur in test construction. This involves whether the test should be values-based or

factual based-knowledge. The true-false creates accessible opportunities to guess and leads to

less reliable results. Should the knowledge structure be multidimensional to measure the

effectiveness of political knowledge? As the population cannot be specified for the test, and

some know better than others, what will be the best method? The articles show that the test

structure, content, and format play an important role in measuring people's political knowledge.

Sheppard, J. (2015) Compulsory voting and political knowledge: Testing a 'compelled

engagement' hypothesis, Electoral Studies. Pergamon. Available at:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261379415001791. Print.

The article is about the importance of political knowledge and the effects of compulsory voting.

Democracy functions best when the citizens are politically informed. The electoral outcome will

be more legitimate and maximize utilization when voters are informed about various candidates.

The author has discussed the problems underlying factual and conceptual political knowledge.

As conceptual knowledge is belief-based and less amenable to research, problems in factual

knowledge are content validity, operationalism, and localized knowledge across borders,
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cultures, and systems. So, education, age, and socialization are essential factors in attaining

political knowledge. The article discusses the critical factors that determine and influence

political knowledge.

Why voting is important (no date) National Geographic Society. Available at:

https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/why-voting-important. Web.

The article is about the importance of the vote. As voting is a civic duty and right, many voters

face hurdles such as polling taxes, literacy tests, and other activities which discourage them from

exercising the political right of voting. The author also gave some instances of the closest

election in US history to emphasize the importance of one vote. This shows that exercise of

voting rights is an important role. The article raises awareness of the importance of voting rights

and how government can smooth the voting process by reducing barriers, such as removing taxes

and educating people.

Tolbert, Caroline J., et al. “Enhancing Civic Engagement: The Effect of Direct Democracy on

Political Participation and Knowledge.” State Politics & Policy Quarterly, vol. 3, no. 1,

2003, pp. 23–41. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40421477. Print.

The article is from State Politics & Policy Quarterly and has been published by Cambridge

University Press, a premier publication outlet of research on state policies. The article is about

increased civil engagement through ballot initiatives. The author used the American national

election studies data to test this hypothesis. As today's reformers want less hierarchical

governmental organizations to increase citizen participation in policymaking, individual and

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collective participation in decision-making positively affects voter turnout. As ballot initiatives

enhance citizen political participation and knowledge but it also derail the representative of

democracy. The article suggests that when people are interested in developing political policies

and decision-making processes, they will be more informed about the political system they

inherit.