Cover of the textbook Outcomes Advanced - Student's Book

The key answer of exercise 4

The key to exercise solutions in chapter 7 - Vital statistics for the textbook Outcomes Advanced - Student's Book with authors Carol Nuttall and Amanda French from National Geographic Learning

Question

Listen to an extract from a radio programme about statistics. Why is each question in Exercise 3 important to consider when talking about statistics?

Answer

  1. The research can be used to manipulate and sell stuff (agrees with presenter + food company example). If funded for a purpose, researchers may be pressurised to get ‘correct’ results. They may get sacked or lose funding.
  2. Self-selected groups through social media tend to attract people with similar views.
  3. If the sample is too small, it exaggerates ‘grouping effects’ of self-selection.
  4. Peer reviews filter out poor research more than anonymous publications.
  5. may not have both absolute and relative figures when comparing may not have a full series of figures (just one or two years) or information that shows if it is a trend or an anomaly
  6. Wrong conclusions can be drawn from data – may highlight an absolute or relative figure to present a ‘good’ result / conclusion. Correlations do not prove causal links.