Evaluating the New Youth Poll Project Course

This paper presents the initial findings of a collaborative student-staff evaluation of a unique polling course delivered at the University of Glasgow. The Youth Poll Project is an honours course run by the John Smith Centre, on which students choose the themes and design the questions for the survey components of the annual UK Youth Poll. Run for the first time in the 2025-26 academic year, the course provides an introduction to young people’s politics in the UK, the role of polling, and survey methods and analysis. At the same time, it asks students to apply their learning by writing the questions for a nationally representative survey of 2,000+ young people, aged 16 to 29. It also asks them to field the same questions to a supplemental convenience sample of non-participant young people recruited by them, and to write up the results of the poll for a public audience. This paper presents the initial evaluations of the course offered via an original survey of the students as well as in-depth discussions between students and the course organiser. A such, it offers insights into the mechanics of running such courses, as well as ways to make them as rewarding as possible to students.