Something I've been thinking about lately: how you would do a survey to get...

Steven G

Elite Member
Joined
Dec 30, 2014
Messages
14,362
Hi,
I have been thinking about how you would do a survey to get a list that say ranks the top 25 Beatles song (for Denis it would be the top 25 NHL players).

I realized that if you simply ask in a survey for ones favorite Beatles song and then get a ranking from that it would not be a good ranking. In theory many might think Let it Be is the number 2 Beatles song so (almost) no one ranks it as number 1 and it does not even make the top 25 list when it clearly should.

Now I know that there is no perfect way of doing this but I am sure you guys and gals will some ideas.

Thanks!
 
My favorite is John Lennon's "Imagine".

....and my favorite hockey player is Mario Lemieux (now retired).
My favorite Lennon's song is also Imagine and my favorite hockey player is Ed Giacomin (beyond retired). I was at the game when the Red Wings played the Rangers just 2 days after Eddie was traded from the Rangers to the Red Wings. The NY fans cheered for the Red Wings! It was simply amazing to hear everyone chanting Eddie, Eddie. NY simply loved him. He was a legend in NY.
 
You can ask each respondent to rank his/her top 25 songs.
 
You can ask each respondent to rank his/her top 25 songs.
Sure but one of my questions (at least in my mind) is what would you do with the data. If an unusual number of respondents rank a particular song number 11, where would you rank this song? Do you rank it number one because it got the largest number of votes (assume)?
 
Sure but one of my questions (at least in my mind) is what would you do with the data. If an unusual number of respondents rank a particular song number 11, where would you rank this song? Do you rank it number one because it got the largest number of votes (assume)?
I would assign points from 25 to 1 for ranking 1st,..., 25th. Sort by total points. If the results are 'random' enough and one song consistently ranks 11th, it may end up on top.
 
Top