My Political Bias.

The tests that websites build to determine someone’s political standpoint are definitely not a new thing to me. I think some are more accurate than others I don’t believe the ones that were listed on the websites to take were very accurate. The first test from the website that goes by the name all sides was not the best test to help determining one’s political views. While I believe it is good that the test offers you a choice of neutral there are not nearly enough questions to determine someone’s standpoint on the political spectrum. The topics this particular website focuses on and questions you are asked to answer are very broad. When I completed the test, I was given results of mostly a center bias. I don’t believe this is completely inaccurate, I know that more questions would completely change the results. I share strong standpoint from both political parties, I don’t agree with one and at the same time I don’t disagree with their arguments either. This can be seen in the second test by 8 valves. Amongst all of the test listed to take this was for sure the best option. 8 Valves test gives the taker the option to choose a centered unsure unbiased opinion on topics as well as asking lots of different questions. I still do not believe this makes things more accurate though. A lot of the questions I had complex viewpoints on whereas other ones had simple straight forward answers. My results for this test were pretty close to the first one leaning around a center standpoint for most of the results. They reported me having a 65.5% for equality compared to a 36.5% for markets deeming my economic axis as social. The site goes through and categorizes your results under three different axes, then I am given what the average of those results looks like. This average for me was determined to be “Social Liberalism”. Like I stated before while I don’t necessarily disagree with the results, they are not completely accurate do to complex standpoints on certain issues. With that being said, the final test we were given to take by political compass I believed was the worst of all. The test did not give you any ways to choose neutral ground on subjects, you either were forced to disagree or agree.  I did not like this method of question asking, because some of the issues I was not quite sure what my standpoint was, or I felt like I didn’t know enough about the subject to have a standpoint. This can greatly affect the results of the test and it did. This test categorized me as authoritarian left, I believe if were given the option to choose an unbiased standpoint on certain topics these results would change drastically. I think these kinds of tests are hard to design for just having a computer grades the results based off the answers given. My idea to strengthen these results to give more accurate answers is to take have a test set up like the second one I took. Test takers should also be given the option for short answer responses with a character limit set to the responses. The character limit will make things easier on the graders for the tests. They then should be graded individually by three different groups. People who claim to have a more of a conservative standpoint, one with liberal point of views and finally one who claims to have a neutral standpoint for the most part on some subjects. The tests results being graded by real people as well as increasing the amount of people grading will help with accuracy of results instead of a computer based system that uses an algorithm that categorizes you based off of results that are this answer makes you have this standpoint, another answer makes you have the opposite standpoint, and so on. Even with the system I described these tests will always be difficult to give completely accurate data. I believe the idea of where you land on the political spectrum should be based off of the finite beliefs you have for things and can only be dictated by yourself truly. The tests are however fun to take just to see where the computer thinks you land.