The Scottish veterans charity Erskine surveyed 2,000 young people between the ages of nine and 15 about World War I and II. Apparently, five percent thought that Hitler was a German football coach; sixteen percent believed that Auschwitz is a WWII theme park; five percent said the Holocaust was a bash to celebrate the war's end. (STV News)
Hitler: football coach?
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I shudder to think of the results of a similar survey of American youth of the same age range...
Any estimates on how many of those were troll responses? I wouldn't put it past some teenagers to pick those answers for shits and giggles.
> sixteen percent believed that Auschwitz is a WWII theme park
Which, today, is an accurate observation.
What Chevan says. Teenagers love messing with authority of any kind, polls included.
16% believe X, amongst 5th graders, hints at a multiple choice test of no consequence. Similar to the surveys where 5th graders anonymously admit to heroin and PCP use.
ah, bless'em.
http://www.erskine.org.uk/assets/docs/survey.pdf
who was hitler?
Invented gravity in 1650 13.55%
Who or what were the S.S?
The Secret Seven 10.86%
etc.
If this survey was anything like the ones my school forced us to take on similar topics, i can tell you that the results are not accurate.
My friends and I would answer ridiculously because we hated taking these surveys and we wanted to mess with them.
Heh! 15% believe that John Lennon's assassination led to the outbreak of WWI.
Obvious trolls are pretty obvious, one would think.
Really? Five percent thought Hitler was a german football coach? Was that a freely given answer or one of the options on a multiple choice test? A WWII theme park? That's another one that kids just randomly blurted out?
If you set out to prove how stupid kids are, then amazingly enough you are going to find your results. I'd love to see a survey, without the "Shocking" multiple choice ringer questions.
It was multiple choice.
Who was Hitler?
Coach to the German national football team 6.88
Leader of the Nazi party 76.74
Invented gravity in 1650 13.55
The first national German to orbit the earth in space 1.88
Eurovision contestant representing Estonia last year 0.96
So a better summary would be: around 25% of schoolchildren aged 9-15 (no breakdown of ages, so they could have been mostly 9 year olds), probably didn't have an understanding of Nazis as a political party and so didn't answer this question very well, or maybe were bored by this point so were having a laugh.
Looking through the answer choices in the pdf posted by octopod above, I'd have a hard time taking this survey seriously if someone presented it to me at that age. I think I would have given the correct answers, for the most part, but I really would have been tempted to answer "28. What is D-Day" as "take your dog to work day."
sounds exactly like kids taking the piss
Question 11 of the survey doesn't even include the correct answer among the choices, since Pearl Harbour wasn't a "suicide bombing using planes."
good catch. trolling revisionist history makes these kids commendable.
I think for No. 22 "Who was Winston Churchill", the answers "A nodding dog on television" and "A 1950s pin-up" are perfectly appropriate responses.
2nd taking the piss
What's more, 125% of the people administering the survey can't properly interpret statistical data.
ask most American kids, and they know about as much history as they do math. Most of the kids can't even point out different countries-or even the oceans on a globe with the names removed.
The problem lies with the fact that the schools have lowered standards and expectations to the point kids graduating high school have to 'cheat' filling out job applications.
What I love about this is that there will be people saying "Man, kids are really dumb nowadays." Well as others have pointed out some are answering wrong on purpose. I would like to add "look in the mirror!" Kids are born knowing squat. You ever talk to a newborn? They're pretty dumb. Can't even feed themselves. If children are truly this dumb it is the fault of the adults.
Okay, speaking as a 16 year old who goes to school, if I was presented with a survey of this type, I would troll. My friends would troll. Most of the people I know would troll (even if they had no idea what trolling is).
Seeing the choice options, I'd consider that survey an insult to any kid. It's like delivering a survey about world war II to a group of women, and put all the non-related answers related to housework and cooking.
Not to mention that the Pearl Harbor question is just unforgivable - I'd much rather see the charity that delivered this be outed from such a blatant misrepresentation of history.
100% of all surveys are innacurate
100 per cent of surveys with silly questions turn up a percentage of people who give silly responses (particularly young people). These are then reported seriously 99 per cent of time. The idiocy is aways in the journalism rather than the surveyed.
Headline should be "Scottish veterans charity Erskine pwned by kids".
And between 5 and 16 per cent of kids will leave a smart ass answer on a survey.
What's this?
"Which country launched the first ever atomic weapon?"
Britain 4.97
Japan 30.59
Germany 18.67
America 40.89
China 4.87
Such a shame that "Soviet Union" wasn't among the choices. I'm sure that they could have gotten some people to fall for that. I'm not sure that "launch" is the best choice of words to describe a gravity bomb.
14. How many World Wars have there been?
Most people said two, but it just goes to show that schoolchildren lack a certain amount of imagination, or they haven't yet learned of the "Seven Years War."
After reading this FiveThirtyEight-post, I'm never going to trust "look how stupid kids are"-surveys ever again.
that sounds like 5, 16, and 5% of people surveyed hate surveys...
@25
Next month's headline, "Schoolchildren forced to undergo joyless WW2 courses put on by Scottish charity with poor understanding of survey psychology."
Even if no-one was deliberately giving false answers, I think those answer rates are pretty good. Do we really believe that everyone knows everything?
Yeah kids all take surveys very seriously. If they'd put our old Scottish favourite "Yer Maw" down as one of the options for any of those questions it would've been top. Sadly I don't think a single person involved will care. The report was probably produced by somebody quite happy to accept the attention and advertising along with possible money. Journalists get to have a field day manipulating the facts to make kids look stupid or ignorant or let down by whatever institution the editorial wants to criticise. Their audience gets to complain about kids today, the good ol' days and politicians (as my father did on reading this the other day until I pointed out the fact that some people, including himself, tell fibs to be funny).
Looking down that octopod's linked pdf, it only takes a glance to notice that the ones with significant "mistakes" are either the questions with dates or daft alternative answers. Of the former, we "adults" have had far longer to remember 1914, 1918, etc. than a child who is possibly only 9 and I can't help but spot that 90% get the date question with the least ambiguous answer (WW2 1939-1945). Of the latter, things like Aushwitz as a theme park and the McDonald's golden arch as a symbol of Remembrance Day are not only significantly dafter but also slightly insulting to the intelligence of some of these kids and, if you look at those results, those alternatives get significantly higher than the other two wrong answers. The kids could try and voice this but, let's face it, they sadly would probably be ignored or dismissed. (Personally I thought that the silliest choices were the ones for the SS question. If I was presented with those alternatives I'd be too busy giggling to answer.)
One question I do find interesting is "Who was the Prime Minister at the time WW2 started?" I think it's the only question where the majority answered incorrectly. It's interesting because I think it possibly highlights the way in which Churchill is represented in this country more than an ignorance due to a lack of education. I also wonder if it highlights the way in which Chamberlain's legacy has been represented over the years. Certainly my recollection of being taught about this at school had a large emphasis on Churchill.
Real polls cost quite a bit of money. Why is a charity even bothering with a poll on such a subject?
Nate Silver has some commentary and fraud-finding on a similar poll of Oklahoma students at 538.com
I wonder how well they would score if, for example, you paid them for each right answer? Or maybe pay them if they got a 90% or higher. If they have incentive to not blow off the test, then you can better trust they are actually doing their best.
Although, knowing what stinkers kids are, it would end up being a test of how well they can cheat for some cash...
+1 for this simple observation.
Moreover, if, for example, someone answered that Auschwitz was a theme park, it doesn't mean that it is what they actually believe at all: its just a box that one checks when one doesn't know the answer. The person who deliberately included that choice in the survey tough shows some true perversity. So does that other one who's outraged by the result.
I used to say stuff like that but I thought I was being funny. I always wonder, when I see these sorts of "kids these days" surveys, whether anything has been done to control for adolescent humor.
Multiple choice surveys for the LOSE! If they had simply left a blank for the kids to fill in there wouldn't be a large portion of them picking the same red herring answer.
Or, if you absolutely must use multiple choice questions, don't provide absurd choices.
bet nobody remembers the marshal plan, either;-}
too true
duh, it depends on your intention. I suspect it was designed using pro-lulz principles for the media effect the inevitable replies would bring.
Sorry, Auschwitz is closed today. The moose out front should have told you.
Additionally, I agree that there must have been shenanigans. Invented gravity?
You raise an excellent point, octopod. It was wrong of me to assume a Scottish veterans' group would be anti-lulz. :)
"I wonder how well they would score if, for example, you paid them for each right answer?"
Exactly. I teach English at two junior highs in Japan and it's amazing how much better they do with speaking activities when there's more to gain than just the "personal satisfaction" of knowing they did a good job.
Given the sales of Call of Duty et al, I'd expect teenagers to know more about WWII than people who actually fought in it.
it's amazing how much better they do with speaking activities when there's more to gain than just the "personal satisfaction" of knowing they did a good job.
This research suggests that reward sometimes has the opposite effect on performance.
When I saw these types of surveys, I used to assume it meant 5% of teens and tweens like tweaking pollsters. Now I'm not so sure.
Two weeks ago in a college web design class, a classmate and I were discussing a web project to feature the work of an artist who was a master of his/her craft. Said classmate asked me who I chose, and when I said Ansel Adams, he said "Who's that?" After a short discussion I determined that this Art New Media major had really never heard of him. (Goood news is that after seeing my project, he decided to find out more about Adams.)
Kamikaze were only used from 1944 when Japan was desperately pressed against the wall. Why would they force kids to answer wrong on a question, or is this history revisionism? Trying to make Japan look insane when in fact Pearl Harbor was a response to the US embargo.