Essays Assignment
These readings talk a lot about statistics and evidence when doing research. As you may have guessed, there is a complex relationship between them in communication research. "The word statistics refers to the formulae that help us process the raw data of research and more specifically to the resulting numbers that summarize the raw data, the relationships among variables, and the differences among groups" (pg. 93).
Consider the example from your readings: On a scale of 1-100 (1= poor and 100 = highest/excellent). One college is ranked at a 29 and another college at a 39.
Answer the following questions:
How might readers of college rankings be misled by looking only at rankings? Can statistics be misinterpreted?