Stats Post It! by Doug Alards-Tomalin

Statistics in Your Life

dwtomalin — 2023-01-04 20:38:49 UTC

Try out the following page made by Neal Agarwal and generate a couple of interesting statistics about you. Pick one statistic you find surprising and briefly report on it.

For myself - here was one telling statistic, life expectancy on average has gone up by "11" years on average since I was born. Lumping everyone into a single average here is actually a bit misleading because there are many factors that impact life expectancy, one of which is socio-economic status (Socioeconomic disparities in life and health expectancy among the household population in Canada (statcan.gc.ca), in particular education and income disparities dramatically reduce life expectancy through numerous factors: stress, diet, access to medical resources.

Poverty

2023-01-05 01:48:15 UTC

Since I was born, the amount of humans living in extreme poverty has decreased by 70%. However, since the pandemic hit in 2020, the downward trend of global poverty was halted, by an increase from 8.4% to 9.3% globally. Poverty is determined by percentage of people who live on less than $2.15 per day. Poverty is the opposite of prosperity and hence can be reduced if there is increase in properity, like by providing subsidies, free (basic) healthcare, free education upto grade 12 etc.

https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overview#1

Poverty (Gurmanpreet)

gurmansidhu1999 — 2023-01-05 01:53:21 UTC

Since I was born, the amount of humans living in extreme poverty has decreased by 70%. However, since the pandemic hit in 2020, the downward trend of global poverty was halted, by an increase from 8.4% to 9.3%. Poverty is determined by percentage of people who live on less than $2.15 per day. Poverty is the opposite of prosperity and hence can be reduced if there is increase in prosperity, like by providing subsidies, free (basic) healthcare, free education upto grade 12 etc.

https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overview#1

2023-01-05 01:57:36 UTC

I was born on September 22nd, 2003. Since then, the number of people living in extreme poverty has decreased by 65%. That sounds like quite a lot, which is awesome. We were on a steady poverty decline until Covid-19 happened. The United Nations reported that extreme poverty rates went from 8.4% of people in 2019 to 9.2% of people in 2020 because of the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, with women and youths being disproportionately affected. (https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/report/2021/goal-01/)

New Year's Resolutions

annahkassen — 2023-01-06 00:45:20 UTC

Most people are aware of how good we are at making New Year's resolutions, and how bad we are at keeping them. Guilty! However, this 2011 article claims that 22% of Canadians who had set New Year's resolutions in the past managed to keep all of them! It frames the statement as if this were a small number, using the word "only," but I happen to find it quite large, and very surprising.

Crime - Mojan

2023-01-06 02:01:13 UTC

Being a big crim. head myself, I have always been interested in seeing the statistics involving our legal/justice system, and/or how our government goes about dealing with these issues. With Indigenous people being so overrepresented in our criminal justice system, the statistics involving their treatment have always been some of the more jaw-dropping for me. An alarming one I came across recently was the fact that child welfare services and police reported that 16% of violence was experienced by Indigenous children, compared to 5.2% of violence experienced by non-Indigenous children. This is probably a direct effect of post-colonialism and the trickled-down effects of intergenerational trauma endured by Indigenous peoples.

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2022001/article/00012-eng.htm

Accidental drug overdoses

Ericsonsalasel — 2023-01-07 02:50:48 UTC

It is said that between 2020 and 2022, the number of accidental drug overdoses in BC has increased by 130%. For me, this percentage, which is above 100%, is very surprising and sad, while the government has used new methods of prevention.

Population

2023-01-07 07:48:10 UTC

Since I was born, the world population has increased by over 2.9 billion people and 7% of those who were born at the same didn't make it to 2023. While it sounds fantastic since it means we have overcome many obstacles that human beings have struggled with throughout history such as life expectancy, birthrate, food and etc, it also alarming since our resources are limited and our environment does not have the capacity to host more people. Although, I have to admit that this issue is mainly related to modern consumer culture and how it facilitates and glorifies overconsumption through credits, ads and etc.

Car accidents statistics in new year holidays

2023-01-07 11:08:51 UTC

The interesting statistic which I saw is about the number of car accidents which are happening around the new year in my country, Iran. It’s really a lot, and it’s really shocking that it’s happening every year and they still couldn’t find any way to stop this happening.

Tina Salasel

Increase in life expectancy

2023-01-07 23:21:33 UTC

Since I was born, the life expectancy went up 6 years for all people. I think this is because of the advanced health care system and healthier lifestyle. Despite, there are still a few regions where the life expectancy is very low that is because of less educated people and poor lifestyle. People have migrated to well developed countries in order to have a better lifestyle.

Jaspreet

A growing distance

2023-01-08 00:04:38 UTC

I was born may 28, 1999. I never knew the moon was moving away from us. i knew it fluctuated in distance. However i had no clue that i was slowly leaving our side. when i read that The moon is 90 cm further away than when I was born, while its not a great distance, it took me completely by surprise. It makes me curious how the moon looked back when life was first becoming terrestrial, and also how it will look into another couple million years. would it look any bigger/smaller? and how would its greater distance to earth (be it further or closer) effect the oceans?

Jacob Dolan

Population

2023-01-08 20:16:01 UTC

Since I was born there are over 3 billion more people on the planet. I find this very interesting because when I was born there were about 4.5 billion people. It’s is a huge increase over the last 40 years!

https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/world-population-by-year/

I also found it interesting that 9% of the people born the same year are no longer alive.

Becky Gillespie

Life Stats - Tana

santanarutherford — 2023-01-08 23:14:01 UTC

Bit of a morbid statistic, but I did find it surprising: I was born in 1997, and 6% of people born that year have since passed away. Perhaps I listen to too much true crime, and I wasn't expecting this to be a high number by any means, but I was a little surprised it was so low. So, I wanted to find out what demographic this statistic was referring to.

Although I wasn't able to find more information on this, I would suspect this number is based on demographics in North America. I would be curious to know more about the leading causes of death for 25-year-olds in this area, statistics on mortality rates of 25-year-olds worldwide, and how they correlate with factors such as socio-economic status, gender, etc.

(Breaking) Bad Visualizations

dwtomalin — 2023-01-09 00:42:09 UTC

Have a look at the above tumblr "Bad Visualizations" which points out poor and misleading uses of graphs in the media. Pick one given on the site (or find one from a different site) and report on it. Provide the source of the graph

One that jumped out at me is this one Bad Visualisations — It’s downright dishonest to start bar graphs... (tumblr.com)
It gets a bit at what I was saying about representing data on the y-axis and truncating that axis (cutting off the 0). Only in select circumstances is this ok (when error bars are included representing how spread out the data is around the measure of central represented at the top of the bar). I would also note that the intervals of time given on the X-axis are unequal as well .

The cost of living since 1999

2023-01-09 01:35:15 UTC

Unfortunately as we all know, the cost of living has been steadily increasing over the years. From the website, I have learned that in 1999, $1.00 is equivalent to $1.78 today. That is close to being doubled! Even though the cost of living increased, the amount of people living in extreme poverty conditions has decreased by 70% since 1999.

Kaitlyn Baker

Pie Charts

2023-01-09 01:44:11 UTC

One bad representation that caught my attention was the pie chart with sections that did not equal to 100%. When using a pie chart, the whole pie is 100%. So, the different sections of data should be equal to 100% when summed together.

Source: https://href.li/?https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/27143430/kane-williamson-hand-steadies-new-zealand-ship

Kaitlyn Baker

Worldwide literacy. (Kunal Jhanjee)

2023-01-09 02:18:37 UTC

Since i was born in 1989, the worldwide literacy rate has gone up from 82% to 87%. Doesn't seem like an overwhelmingly high jump but if we look at the actual number of people in the 5%, i am sure it must be a huge number! Also, not sure if it took into account 82% of the total population in 1989 vs 87% of the total population in 2023.. Perhaps the sample was taken from the total population in 1989 vs 2023 to get the difference.

Sleep

2023-01-09 14:27:25 UTC

I found it interesting that since I was born, I have spent 2506 days of my life asleep because I have always wondered how much more I could do if I did not need to sleep. I understand that sleeping is essential and absolutely necessary for our body's health, but as I get older, I feel the time flying faster, and I cannot help but feel like I am wasting my time, especially when I am busy. Therefore, seeing the actual number of days I have spent sleeping makes me wonder how much of it was needed for my body and how much of it was wasted.

Canon Okubo

Getting expensive

2023-01-10 03:15:51 UTC

$1.00 USD from when I was born is the equivalent of $4.98 USD today.
I'm guessing this is an average among all items but it sure would be interesting to see these comparison for independent segments... I wouldn't be surprised to see that technology is one of the segments with higher increases... Right?

Alejandro de Pablo

Sketchy Axis

2023-01-10 03:29:21 UTC

It's amazing how by just playing with the scale of an axis you can absolutely skew the information of a graph. Unfortunately, this is a common practice used to deceive the intended public into what the perpetrator is trying to drive... So, the next time you analyze a graph make sure to fully understand what it is trying to demonstrate!

Alejandro de Pablo

Didn't think I'm lucky to be alive now.

2023-01-10 04:21:26 UTC

One of the interesting statistics about me is that 5%of the people born in 2002 didn't make it to now 2023.
I've always taken the fact that I'ma alive now for granted. This reminded me of the reality that there are people who couldn't survive up to now and were never given opportunities to design their lives!

Seowon Ryu

The S&P500 is up 324% since you were born.

2023-01-10 04:34:45 UTC

At the current rate, the S&P500 has been increasing by 18% percent a year since 2004. I find it surprising that it's gone up this much, especially considering there's been a few very rough patches in the stock market (2008,2020).
- Matthew Bartos

2023-01-10 04:37:56 UTC

I've always never so cared about the intervals when reading these representations using a choropleth. It turns out it's quite important to see if all ranges have regular intervals. By not having regular intervals the data can be understood in a skewed, wrong way.

Bet on the market, not individual stocks

patricklogan1 — 2023-01-10 04:43:54 UTC

For years, my savings have been sitting in a generic low-interest savings account. Over the last couple months, I've started to read quite a bit about investing. One piece of advice that I have constantly come across is to invest in EFTs and Index Funds rather than individual stocks. Outperforming the market is apparently quite difficult, especially over an extended period of time.

To think that the S&P 500 has increased over 1000% during my lifetime is absolutely mind boggling. If only I could go back in time and convince my 6-year old self to invest his allowance instead of buying Pokemon cards!

- Patrick Logan

Too much. (Kunal Jhanjee)

2023-01-10 18:17:24 UTC

While the whole idea of using graphics is to clarify the data, too much visualization in the form of infinity amount of colour coding just adds to more confusion.

Population Increase - Mallika

2023-01-10 23:30:57 UTC

There are 2,376,045,839 more people on Earth than when I was born in 1994. The world is becoming more competitive. Great minds are coming together and inventing commodities and services we never even felt we need them in the 90s. But there are many downside of growing population. Natural resources are depleting, demand for food, water, housing, healthcare are at it's highest with soaring cost of living. With increase in population, technology and comfort has increased rapidly. Unfortunately regeneration of natural resources is not as fast as tech development.

LIFE EXPECTANCY RISE

2023-01-11 03:43:35 UTC

Since the day I was born, a fact that brought joy to my day was that the average lifespan has increased by 7 years since the day I was born. To me this is surprising considering it seems like there is always more news and facts coming out about health scares in our society, and while it is easy to focus on the negative this is good news! I believe that the further we develop technology, we will develop more and more cures for things such as cancer, diabetes etc. I would love to know further details regarding this stat such as is crime factored into this? What is factored into this stat in order to determine it.

- Jenna

Bad Visualizations

2023-01-11 03:49:07 UTC

This whole visualization of the baseball players averages is a great example of a poorly constructed visual. As mentioned in the description, there is little to no context on what the scores are representing such as the numbers in the red bubbles, as well as there is no representation of the scores along the scale which is misleading and confusing.

-jenna

Bad Visualizations

2023-01-11 22:22:49 UTC

This graph is very difficult to read. The x axis does not have a consistent intervals of the years which skews how the data is represented. The data points are also very unclear as they are not displayed. The way colour is used to represent the data makes the graph very busy and unclear- there is too much going on here.

Source: Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Becky Gillespie

Mixing graph styles

2023-01-11 22:58:24 UTC

While a bit creative, using multiple different types of graphs at once is incredibly confusing. Beyond that both sets of bar graphs begin at different heights and are not consistent with the line graphs. overall this makes the information confusing to the interpreter. Should have just stuck with one style

- Jacob Dolan

avocado toast

2023-01-12 14:31:31 UTC

this one made laugh so hard because either someone really hated avocado toast or for some unknown reason he thought its a good idea to compare the housing prices between two different cities with amount of avocado toast would cost to buy them. Or something between those lines because I read it like 10 times and still don't know what its all about. It made me wonder how many houses I could buy with all the money I wasted on avocado toasts!
https://www.tumblr.com/badvisualisations/184827953341/this-is-not-all-you-need-to-click-through-to-this?source=share

Reza Bakhshi

Population numbers

clareurquhart — 2023-01-12 23:27:41 UTC

Since I was born, there have been 1,731,189,109 people born. I was a bit gobsmacked at this number. Considering my age, I didn't expect the number to be so high. I remember when the world population hit 7 billion people in 2011, and we've now hit 8 billion. I frequently hear that we're stressed out about the lower birth rates in developed countries, that I sometimes forget that it is not a universal experience around the world.

Half pie

clareurquhart — 2023-01-12 23:42:50 UTC

This chart took up more brain power just trying to identify what each section was than the power needed to understand the content. It bothers me that you need to refer to the legend to figure out what each piece means. Continually looking back and forth also made me forget which label was for which colour. I also don't like how the percentages aren't right next to each piece of the chart. For some reason, the blue and red ones have their percentages right above, and the rest have theirs nowhere near the piece.

Unspecified Y axis

2023-01-15 06:06:21 UTC

At first I didn't understand if it's a graph or not. It's known that a graph always has 2 axis to define the variables. But this graph has no Y axis. Though in the graph it's represented as a 2 axis graph but it in unclear that what the Y axis specifies so therefore, I think that there is no Y axis.

Jaspreet Kaur

The (F)law of Averages

dwtomalin — 2023-01-16 01:43:36 UTC

Check out the above video "The Myth of Average" by Todd Rose - make sure to watch at least the first 5 minutes (the last part of the talk is great too though!). Todd discusses whether the "average" is a useful concept socially. He addresses an important question: are most people actually "LIKE" the average? Tell me about an instance where you encountered something in the real world that was designed for the "average" person that didn't fit you very well (e.g., clothing, approaches to education, your car seat) - what do you think can be done to avoid the "flaw of averages"?

For me personally, I ran into the law of averages when I was in elementary school - and started covering courses in math. I remember not being able to "understand" it at the same rate that other kids were - and in particular had trouble grasping mental math. I remember they used to use these exercises called "mad minutes" (nice name) where you'd get a sheet with way more problems than you could possibly solve in a minute and you'd have to try and race through them and get as many done as possible, and I would struggle to get even one answered, while many of the other kids seemed quite good at it. To this day, I think about my math education and what could have been done to improve it, and all I can think is, maybe a bit more flexibility and compassion, and recognition that not everyone learns something like "addition" in the same way might have been nice. Of course I've learned to love math as an adult because of how useful it is at answering questions about research.

Pie Chart

2023-01-16 04:22:11 UTC

https://www.pedestrian.tv/news/herald-sun-misleading-pie-chart/

A great example of the bad visualizations of graphs/ charts that I see very often in the media is where the percentage and the graph/chart do not match like this. This is misleading the audience into thinking that "YES" is the opinion of the majority while taking advantage of the fact that many people do not pay attention enough to notice this error.

Canon Okubo

CLUTTER

annahkassen — 2023-01-16 06:02:46 UTC

This one from "Bad Visualizations" (photo link from twitter) really jumped out because it is so hard to read! The main problem is a lack of hierarchy; when there is a lot of information and all of it is treated with the same amount of importance, it makes it difficult for the reader to know where to begin or to identify an area they want to dig further into.

Uninformative Y axis - Mojan H

2023-01-16 06:15:28 UTC

I decided to go with this one, but I have seen many other of these that don't have any information in the Y axis. What kind of weird trend is that? I understand that it is meant to tell us about the biscuit market share percentage, but it's hard to tell anything about the placement of the lines when it does not list the percentage numbers, or anything frankly. Also, in regards to the X axis, although the range between the intervals match, what in the world is "YTD" written next to the last interval on the X axis? It makes it really hard to make any sense of what exactly is going on here. Taken from : https://www.tumblr.com/badvisualisations

Ergonomics

2023-01-16 18:09:40 UTC

In design, "sizing" is done on the basis of ergonomic studies which average the measurements of the human body. As you can see in this example, the differences between the 5th, 50th, and 95th percentiles are considerable - and become painfully apparent when outliner consumers use a product designed for the mean.
To make things even more complicated, designers must accommodate not only based on these averages but, also, on the averages of weight, gender, ethnicity, etc... which makes finding the "perfect fit" an impossibility for most of us.

Alejandro de Pablo

March Covid Cases in Russia

patricklogan1 — 2023-01-16 22:23:14 UTC

A graph from RT News that shows the Covid cases by day through the month of March in Russia. Everything seems reasonable at first glance. Judging by the bars, one might assume that Covid cases are either slowing down or leveling off. However, if you take a look at the numbers above each bar, you will start to notice that as the case counts increase drastically, the change in the height of the bars does not reflect this; they are not proportionate to the numbers that they represent.

The inflation after 2002

minseokkim1 — 2023-01-17 04:13:42 UTC

I was born in 2002. If you compare it to a dollar in 2002, the value of the dollar in 2023 is $1.65. The dollar has posted an annual average inflation rate of 2.41% since 2002, with a cumulative price increase of 64.98%.

-Daniel Minseok Kim

Invalid graph axis

minseokkim1 — 2023-01-17 04:21:51 UTC

In this graph, it is hard to know which axis explains what. People cannot know what the x-axis refers to and the y-axis refers to if there isn't any explanation under the graph. Without an explanation, it is just a picture with dots. Currently, I could not understand watching this graph with the country having a big belief in vaccines.

- Daniel Minseok Kim

Clothing industry

2023-01-18 14:58:50 UTC

The first thing that came to mind when thinking about averages in everyday life was clothing and shoes. To be more specific, jeans for clothing and tall boots for shoes.

Jeans because I need to buy the "short" length instead of the "normal" or "average" length because I am shorter.

Boots because I recently bought a pair of tall boots that are tighter around the calf and reach up to just below the knee. These boots JUST zipped up. If my calves were any bigger, the boots would have not fit. What is the "average" calf size for size 7.5 women's feet? Is there even an average for calf sizes compared to shoe sizes?! Most likely not.

Kaitlyn Baker

Piano

annahkassen — 2023-01-18 22:45:15 UTC

Although the piano is a relatively recent instrument, it was still designed a long time ago and has not evolved much since. At the time, professional players were men (who tend to have larger hands than women) and the keyboard would have been designed for their average hand size. Anecdotally, we've all heard that piano players have long fingers! As a result, this makes playing the piano more challenging for people with smaller hands. I never realized it could be an issue until hearing about this recent innovation that seems to be changing musical lives: a smaller keyboard! Sadly, as a small-handed person, I had stopped playing by the time I heard about it, but I'm glad to know that piano playing has become more inclusive.

- Annah Kassen

TESTING

2023-01-19 03:16:53 UTC

As a younger child and throughout my teens I always struggled with test anxiety, no matter how hard I studied i found the build up for a test would make me blank out and forget everything that I worked so hard to study for. I always found that most ways people test students is unfair as someone, like myself might know the information and be able to demonstrate it better in other ways but since writing tests is the most common way, It would reflect poorly throughout my academic journey. Luckily after years of practice I no longer get nervous for tests, unless its math then i still normally get worried.

Jenna McPhail

Shoe size

minseokkim1 — 2023-01-20 22:29:13 UTC

Back when I was in my home country, Korea, I was a student who was one of the students that had the lowest height in the class. But all of a sudden, my height began to grow at a tremendous speed for a moment. Growing taller was good, but I found that my hands and feet grew faster and faster as I grew taller. The average size of an adult male in Korea is around US 9 shoes, and I have around 11 to 12 feet. Because of this, it was difficult to find shoes that fit my feet even in Korean stores or online shopping. However, after coming to Canada, my foot size became average here, which allowed me to buy shoes without stress here.

Height is a hassle

2023-01-21 19:38:41 UTC

I am 6'2. The average height for men in Canada is allegedly 5'10, and for women it is apparently 5'4 (which i struggle to believe). You can already imagine that this extra bit of height can make the world rather inconsistent and annoying to navigate.

The best examples that spring to mind exist in the bathroom. The sinks and mirrors are often to low and require some awkward crouching, but nothing will ever compare to the notorious shower. I'm sure many taller people find the same issues. the shower head is far to low in most showers. its like the scene from elf where he just needs to make it work the best he can.

An easy remedy would be to just have a detachable shower head, and i will credit whoever is designing these bathrooms, detachable heads are seemingly becoming more commonplace. However, that doesn't change the fact that its just generally awkward to navigate in most scenarios.

- Jacob Dolan

Days Sleep

alexanderfong — 2023-01-22 01:44:38 UTC

The days I've spent sleeping is currently 2670. I find this somewhat hard to believe as this site most likely uses the average of hours that people sleep (7-9). I know that I have had times where my sleep hours have been abnormal. I would assume that my days slept are roughly 2670 but not an accurate time for 2670 days.

Visual inconsistency

alexanderfong — 2023-01-22 01:57:44 UTC

The two lines used to signify their similarity fail to do so properly due to their design, the overlap fails to give a proper and accurate visual representation of their overlap. On the left side, the increments aren't consistent (0-10-30-50) and on the right side, they start at 160 and increase by 100s but aren't consistent in their visual distance.

Clothing (shirts)

alexanderfong — 2023-01-22 05:51:12 UTC

While growing up i never had much issues with clothing other finding .5 sizes of shoes but when I was about 17/18, a friend of mine had pointed out that I had broad shoulders and that the shirts I wear don't sit right on my body. Upon further investigation, they were right, the size of the shirts fit in accordance to my body size but it was apparent that my shoulders passed the shoulder length on these shirts. To combat this I simply just decided to dress in oversized tees or tees that matched my shoulder length rather than what was suppose to be my for my body size.

Brandy Melville - Mojan H

2023-01-23 04:06:25 UTC

I will never forget turning 12 and seeing all of the girls around me wearing clothes from Brandy Melville, a (still) very popular clothing store that has a "one size fits all" system for almost all of their pieces. I can assume that when they went about figuring out how to make the clothing, they would use an average size of what they thought their consumer demographic would be, but for me, they couldn't have been more off. I couldn't fit a majority of their clothes and at the time it sucked because pretty much all of my friends and virtually every girl around me was dressed in Brandy from head to toe. This company went on to face some backlash about their unconventional idea of "average size", (I was so relieved to realize it wasn't just me) which is why I think now I can actually fit in their clothes. Took them long enough!

Various views of variability

dwtomalin — 2023-01-23 06:59:43 UTC

See the website above (storytelling with data) they challenged people to "visualize" variability in a variety of different ways. Pick one of the many submissions on this site and explain what variable they chose and how they visualized variability. What aspects of how they visualized variability made the variability in the dataset easy to understand? What made it challenging to understand?

Cultural Difference

2023-01-24 17:49:40 UTC

I am around average height in Japan, so I never had any problem growing up. However, ever since I came to Canada about five years ago, I have encountered many inconveniences, including the kitchen counter or sink being too high, not being able to reach high shelves or things at the store, clothes being too long, and people bumping into me because I am too short. Since I have heard my tall friends complaining about their problems, I understand that changing the height of things will not solve any problems. However, many brands can improve their size inclusivity regarding clothes.

Canon Okubo

NBA Teams Points Scored - Spaghetti Plot

2023-01-24 23:49:16 UTC

The visual representation I chose to interpret was Ben X who graphed the points scored for every NBA team for the 2018-2019 basketball season. He graphed these scores using a spaghetti plot. As you may know, there is a lot of NBA teams and even more scores for every game. So, this graph looks very messy. It actually looks like a child just scribbled all over the graph. However, they did include 2 lines that was one red and one blue. These different coloured lines represent the least and most variance which was helpful to visually see and interpret.

Kaitlyn Baker

Prerequisites

annahkassen — 2023-01-25 00:08:31 UTC

This visual representation was created to help convince high school staff that a certain level of math should be required to take physics. I find it effective at communicating the data, even to those with no knowledge of variability. Each dot represents a student score, the average scores are clearly stated, and the range of each group can be seen by the length of the line. It might be a bit harder to know the exact score of any particular dot because of it's distance from the y axis, but this visualization seems more invested in the over arching message rather than individual scores.

Annah Kassen

average wage

2023-01-25 01:57:42 UTC

the more i learn about average the more i understand we have problem. this became big issue for me in my previous work which was commission based. they decided to cut down the commission pays by almost half and the excuse was that they want to pay more hourly and bring the pays close to average cause most people put the same effort but because their effort not always turns into sales it is unfair to them! I asked them how they came up with the average number cuz obviously that number wouldn't work for me and neither for my effort. they explained something that was Equivalent of mean for entire company which was weird because there were more outliers than expected working people because most of them were just hired and some of them were not even familiar with commission structure. to make it short I quit since i simply didn't find it fair. lastly I had the same issue with school in Iran in my elementary school since my grades were close lower than average but later on when I grow up I realized the average number was so high and it wasn't based on average of students grades but it was based on average expected grades set by the institution!

Reza B.

Average shoe size

2023-01-26 21:59:22 UTC

The average shoe size never fits me in width. Good thing they started making wide fit but because that's not the average shoe size, they come in poor design.

The Simpsons

2023-01-27 02:31:05 UTC

This graph exemplifies my feelings for the Simpsons... A show that I used to enjoy very much. Variability here shows the overall success of each season and identifies how far apart the lowest and highest episodes were rated for each season... So, if you were interested in watching just one season, according to this graph your best bet would be season 3, the highest rated with lowest variability.

Alejandro de Pablo

Monthly rainfall

2023-01-27 07:09:00 UTC

The visual representation that I chose was from Patrick where he tried to visualize the amount of rainfall in Milwaukee monthly from the year 2000 to 2018. Small blue clouds represent that, that month received less rainfall whereas the grey coloured clouds that those months in the specific year received a lot of rainfall. Though it's a great method to understand the variability of rainfall throughout the years but according to him Aug, 2007 received 12 times more rainfall than August, 2000. It is visible that in August 2007 there was higher precipitation as compared to August, 2000 but the number 12 times is not understandable as the only thing visible to us is the clouds and their colour. From that, I think no-one can guess that the rainfall was exactly 12 times more in 2007 August.

Jaspreet Kaur

Relative size of the sun

2023-01-27 08:57:01 UTC

I liked this poster for two reasons: 1. it s easy to realize how big the sun is compared to other planets in the solar system. 2. It is also easy to compare the size of other planets to each other such as Venus to mars. However, the weak point of the poster is actually that! it perhaps provides too much information and while the main focus is the size of the sun compared to other planets it has way more information on it. The other problem with it is that the dots that compares the size of the planets to the sun doesn't really make sense. for instance, Jupiter is 10 times bigger than earth and 10 times smaller than the sun but the visuals for its size don't make sense! Reza Bakhshi

NY Times Best Seller List: Outliers

patricklogan1 — 2023-01-27 23:25:08 UTC

A really good example of how outliers could possibly affect the mean and variance/standard deviation. Some publishers (e.g. Grand Central Publishing, Penguin Group, etc.) have a large amount of books that have been on the best sellers list, albeit for a short amount of time. Meanwhile, Riverhead Books has very few titles on the list but has one book that has been on the list for approximately 100 weeks.

Seeing everything graphically, in scale, helps me quickly understand how consistent each publisher is. If you gave me a number, it would be a lot harder to understand/interpret. Also, being able to compare different publishers side-by-side is much easier too. Again, comparing data between publishers visually is much more intuitive than doing it by numbers alone. However, as we saw in week 2, if the data isn't being properly displayed, people might be misled/come to a false conclusion.

The Increasing Role of the Strikeout in MLB

minseokkim1 — 2023-01-29 07:25:38 UTC

The graph that I chose was the increasing role of strikeout in MLB. This visual representation shows how since the 1910, how much the strikeout has been increased around the whole game. In this graph shows that the strikeout has been increasing gradually and show twice more of strikeout rate than the 1910.

Myth of the Normal Curve

dwtomalin — 2023-01-29 21:22:08 UTC

Hi again everyone. This week I have a chapter for you to read from a wonderful book by Curt Dudley-Marling and Alex Gurn. See the link to the PDF file above. It covers an important topic - to what degree does the "normal" curve provide us with an accurate representation for how human behaviour is distributed in the population. For your post this week, I want you to focus on the end message of this chapter. If the normal curve is a flawed representation of human behaviour - why do we continue to cling to it and what are some ways we can move past it (scientifically, socially, etc.).

Fishing Activity -Mojan H

2023-01-30 07:28:54 UTC

I chose this graph because frankly, it kind of confuses me. Here we are looking at the variability of fishing hours growth from the top 10 countries (not identified) from 2012-2017. There are many things I hate about this lined bar graph. First of all, which are the top 10 countries? And second, it makes it a little hard to be able to visually be able to tell which variables we want to look at. I can only get an idea of the actual numbers represented when they point out one of the notable findings and even then, they don't always help. Take the note starting with "September 2015: One country....." they noted a 35% increase in fishing hours, but not many numbers were stated and to be honest, I think the spikes being so far from the Y axis make it hard to visualize the numbers.

Contribution to film genres

alexanderfong — 2023-02-01 05:18:59 UTC

I had chosen these graphs on cinema genres through history because it very easily showcases what genres were trending during their respective decades. It shows the increases and decreasing viewership of these three genres with added information explaining why some may have a spike in popularity or decline.

Size difference

2023-02-02 00:21:50 UTC

https://at.tumblr.com/badvisualisations/1-as-a-rule-the-y-axis-of-a-bar-graph-needs-to/omsvhs2iaek6

This graph shows the average height of women from different countries. Except the graph is so poorly done. How can some women be 1/5 the size of others on average. Additonally, the y axis starts at around 5 foot. - Matthew B

Marriage Rates

2023-02-03 03:29:13 UTC

Thought these were interesting. not only does it provide us two different types of graphs to interpret, but it also does a great job showing us how the marriages/year vary. it does this well in the first graph by making use of the vertical axis while also comparing each state against eachother. the second graph grants us a more comprehensive comparison aswell.

Bike size averages. Kunal Jhanjee

2023-02-03 20:07:17 UTC

The bike industry offers sizes based on the XS-S-M-L-XL-XXL, in their own way. They usually offer a height range applicable to these sizes. But at the same time, every manufacturer has their own range for a specific size they offer. This has given rise to the bike fitting industry, and i can see the value in it. I have realized that as long as i get an XL, regardless of the manufacturer (i have had and have many bikes) it works for me, however, some L sizes have also been a good fit in the past.

Our shining star. Kunal Jhanjee

2023-02-03 20:23:24 UTC

I like this graph, really enjoy astronomical stuff. I like the variable of distance from the sun, the terrestrial planets seem to be at distance in increments of 2x(Mercury-Venus) & 1.5x (Venus-Earth-Mars)which is very close to the actual distance (more or less) and so on. The sizing, i can understand is hard to depict very accurately without some moving graphics. They could have shown the relative size of Jupiter against the sun, once that is taken into account, then Saturn could be pitched against the size of Jupiter and so on so sort of get a better sense of the sizing of the planets.

The Bell Curve

patricklogan1 — 2023-02-03 21:03:48 UTC

I think our reliance on the bell curve stems from its simplicity; it is easy to understand and can be readily used to give us an answer to any number of questions – even if those answers are wrong. In many ways, I think it has become a heuristic of sorts. A simple way to explain complex phenomena. The fact that the bell curve is used to explain data across a wide range of areas, lends it a sense of universality and, because of this, we are more likely to rely on it to explain behaviours – even when it is not appropriate to do so. Like any heuristic or cognitive bias, by learning about it, we are less likely to engage in it. So, just by reading this article, I would argue that we have all taken the first step in addressing this issue.

The Hi(Z)tory Behind Z

dwtomalin — 2023-02-05 23:38:03 UTC

Nothing too controversial for this week's discussion topic - but I wanted to share with you this short historical summary of Z-scores. It's interesting to note that the Z- test was originally used to measure errors in astronomical observations - and the normal curve was developed through coin flips (nothing remotely behavioural). Given what you now know about what "statistical significance" is and how the concept was arrived it - how do you feel about using statistics to make decisions about behaviour? Should Psychology change its approach?

No problem at all

2023-02-06 22:06:37 UTC

As long as the experiments are valid and have been replicated with the same results we could be safe to assume that they are correct and, so, will probably be represented by a z score... right?

Alejandro de Pablo

The current approach is good

gurmanpreetkaur — 2023-02-07 22:32:31 UTC

I think the statistics have been formed after conducting various experiments and studies and devising and rejecting various hypothesis and conclusions. Therefore, I believe statistics on behaviour make it easier to understand and interpret the data. For example, a scatterplot depicts the co-relation between two factors like age and occurrence of a disease. This gives us valuable insights on probability.

Current methods are good

2023-02-10 03:42:44 UTC

I think that statistics is not always accurate in predicting every human behaviour. But maybe that is because of the outliers that are present in the human population that will always remain. Otherwise, I think that as experiments are conducted one after the other to prove that hypothesis to be true. So, it means that today's methods of predicting behaviour by statistical research are good.
Jaspreet Kaur

Conflating Statistical Significance and Significance

patricklogan1 — 2023-02-10 22:05:21 UTC

I think that statistical significance can be somewhat misleading. It allows us to infer whether an observation or groups of observations have occurred by chance (e.g. natural variation) or not. However, it gives us no indication as to whether the observation(s) are "meaningful". While we might find something to be statistically significant, the differences between groups may be extremely small. Going back to the example in class today, while improvements in GRE scores after taking Doug's GRE course might be found to be statistically significant, an increase of 2 points on the GRE overall is not a "significant" increase. Like the general use of the word "theory" and "scientific theory", I think these terms can be easily conflated, especially by the wider public.

Too deep to turn back now

2023-02-11 01:36:44 UTC

I always wondered how these early theorist knew what they discovered was correct or valid. What if they just completely made something up, said it was true and we just believed it and continued to follow it? However, after reading the history and learning multiple people found the same pattern, it was mostly not made up. Even if it was made up, we are far too deep into using this system to turn back now.

Kaitlyn

Much Ado About Null Hypothesis Testing

dwtomalin — 2023-02-12 22:41:34 UTC

The next big topic in the class is hypothesis testing (specifically something called "null" hypothesis testing or NHST) in which we use the dreaded "p-value" to determine how "good" our results are. Blakely McShane and Andrew Gelman talk a bit about how in the social sciences (particularly Psychology) there is an underlying culture of thinking of p-values below .05 as "noteworthy" and those above .05 as "uninteresting" - this is an artificial dichotomy that's been imposed by decades of relying on this value as a publication threshold. For this topic, read the article linked above and tell me, what about "Null Hypothesis Testing" seems counterintuitive as a way to make decisions (are p-values hard to understand, and if so why?)? Is there anything mentioned in the article that you find shocking?

They're all tools

2023-02-13 05:22:26 UTC

This is an interesting example of curiosity moving the field ahead; it's impressive what humans have achieved over time. Statistics (like many other things) can be a great tool for making decisions about behaviour, as long as we understand its strengths, limitations, and the context in which it is being used.
- Annah Kassen

Lies, damned lies, and statistics.

2023-02-17 11:17:43 UTC

this has been my question since the beginning of the course. the result of this behavioral research is based on samples and on top of that the researcher has lots of options to manipulate their data such as the degree of freedom and error percentage( 0.01, 0.05 0.06). but every day I hear something on the news or tv that research has shown this and that. while I see the benefits of the current approach such as the production of a large amount of research and data, it is also concerning since the validity and reliability of this research is questionable. Thus, at least I think NEWS and media have to limit their publication to peer-reviewed articles and manipulated articles have to be mentioned where ever it gets publicized. Reza B

hypothesis

2023-02-17 11:37:38 UTC

I like this quote: A crucial step is to move beyond the alchemy of binary statements about ‘an effect’ or ‘no effect’ with only a P value dividing them. Instead, researchers must accept uncertainty and embrace variation under different circumstances.
although I am aware that it may not be an easy option for most researchers since they have sponsored and invested lots of money in their research and producing an uncertain result after all that effort may damage their careers, however manipulating data or tests to produce desired results is also immoral. overall I think the current approach of predicting or analyzing human behavior and testing with mathematical formulas is wrong and we need a fundamental change in how and why we are doing research. Reza B

Transparency in Research

patricklogan1 — 2023-02-18 01:11:05 UTC

I quite like the idea of preregistering analysis plans and sharing data. I think it would make things a lot more transparent. The turnover of research in academia is huge and when career prospects/funding/reputations rely so heavily on one's research, it's easy to understand why an academic may be tempted to cherry pick some data in order to make their research more attractive.

- Patrick Logan

Transparency Ditto

annahkassen — 2023-02-18 01:52:51 UTC

It never occurred to me how drastically researchers' (or corporations') access to data has changed and is affecting our interpretation of it. For the first time, we can know population averages in the billions in some areas (eg users of Facebook, credit cards etc.). Those numbers leave a lot of room for manipulation. Reading this article, it was shocking to me that preregistering analysis plans is NOT a requirement for research. It seems to be an easy leverage point that could keep research honest while still allowing room for exploration.

- Annah Kassen

Stuck like a fly to tape

2023-02-19 12:04:02 UTC

I believe a huge reason for why we cling to it, is the fact that is is the status quo, most of our methods and calculations are based around it in some fashion, and to move past it would mean venturing into something with no progress which is really difficult when you have something easy, even if flawed, right there.

Sometimes to move forwards, we need to take a few steps back and take a different path at the fork in the road.

- Jacob Dolan

Odd beginnings

2023-02-19 12:07:16 UTC

Yes it has a strange history, but the methodology is undeniable. While there could be improvements like with everything, all will come in due time as new minds apply themselves to the field of study.

As it stands statistics as it is gies us the opportunity to measure and make conclusions about large groups of people fairly accurately, even if that was an unintended use of it in its origin. However, much like many things in humanities history, we have a tendency to accidentally stumble upon things that work efficiently in other areas.

- Jacob Dolan

What's so Significant about Significance Anyway?

dwtomalin — 2023-02-19 21:48:41 UTC

We talk a lot about "significance" testing in this course and the importance of having a p-value that's less than 0.05 to claim it. In the next part of the course (covering t-tests) you're going to learn more about another class of statistics called "effect size" measures (e.g., Cohen's D). After reading the article, see if you can answer the following questions 1. How are effect size measures different from p-values? and 2. How are they connected to the idea of "sample size" (in what ways do sample size influence them)?

Effect Size

2023-02-24 20:12:12 UTC

1. p just measures the probability of an event happening while effect size determines the importance of said event.

2. p can sometimes be achieved with a large enough sample but that doesn't really mean that it is important - effect size helps us understand the real relevance of p

- Alejandro

Effect Size vs. P-Value

2023-02-28 06:12:01 UTC

1. P-values measure whether there is statistical significance (probability) that the null hypothesis is correct. If the p-value is less than 5% we reject the null hypothesis because there is less than a 5% chance it is correct. The p-value only tells us there is a difference between the groups we are measuring and whether is was due to chance. Effect size essentially measures how much the IV affected the DV, and a high effect size demonstrates the IV had a large effect on the DV. It shows how important the effect of the IV was on the DV.

2. The sample size can influence the p-value. As sample size increases the p-value will reach statistical significance (p≤5%) but that does not mean there is significance. The effect size is not affected by the sample size because it is calculated by the data collected (independent of the sample size). This is why both p-value and effect size should be reported to illustrate the practical significance of the research findings.

Becky Gillespie

p vs effects size

2023-03-01 04:26:32 UTC

the p-value doesn't reveal the effect size, however, it is a good indicator of an existing effect. increase or decrease in sample size affects p-value while effect size is independent and doesn't change with the size of our sample.
reza b

Effect size and p value

gurmanpreetkaur — 2023-03-01 23:30:45 UTC

1. P value is the probability that the null hypothesis is true. That is why the standard is usually set at 5% to ensure reliability. Effect size tells us if the p-value that we found is large enough to be really significant. we are looking for the p value to be as small as possible and effect size to be as high as possible for the alternative hypothesis to be accepted.

2. More the sample size, lesser the p-value. However, effect size is independent of sample size. Significance of effect size is to measure the effect of sample size on our findings.

p vs effect size

2023-03-02 17:46:52 UTC

The p value is more about the probability of something happening or an event happening whereas the effect size tells us how important the event actually is.

The p value is the likelihood of us accepting the null hypothesis and has a 5% standard to make sure that this probability is reliable.

For effect size, we want the p value to be small and effect size to be large which allows us to (hopefully) reject the null and accept the alternative hypothesis

sadia rehman

P-Values, Effect Sizes and Sample Sizes

2023-03-03 22:54:20 UTC

The p-value is the probability of obtaining a score assuming that null hypothesis is true. If p < a, this indicates that an effect is actually present and not due to error or variability. Another way to think of it is that the p-value represents the probability of making a Type-I error; rejecting the null hypothesis when it is actually true.

Effect size measures the difference in scores between two groups and can be used to infer a relationship between variables.

While effect size is not directly affected by sample size, p-values are. As p-values are calculated using standard error (at least in t-tests), sample size (n) can influence them. This is problematic as the statistical significance of an effect can be determined arbitrarily by inflating one’s sample size. However, with that being said, it’s also important to have an adequate sample size because, as n increases, a sample will better represent the population (e.g. law of large numbers).
- Patrick Logan

Significance about significance

annahkassen — 2023-03-06 01:11:16 UTC

1. Effect size measures are different from p values in that they represent the impact that a IV has on a DV, rather than the statistical probability of results being obtained by chance. In a study rejecting the null hypothesis, we are generally looking for smaller p values and a larger effect size (usually described as Cohen's d).

2. A large enough sample size can usually find statistical significance, even if the effect size is low. This can result in a Type 1 error. On the other hand, if effect size is large enough, a small sample will easily represent it.

The flaw of averages Jenna Mcphail

2023-03-30 21:18:04 UTC

This is a very relatable and interesting topic, and as I scroll through all of the different instances that people have encountered flaws in averages, the most common one for me is clothing. I find shopping for jeans wildly stressful because of height differences. So many brands have jeans that seem like they are build for unrealistically tall women, when the majority of average height is no where near the length. Therefore most jeans people buy end up needing to be hemmed.

NBA points Jenna McPhail

2023-03-30 21:21:17 UTC

The visual representation i chose was the one I found to be most confusing and messy to look at which was the NBA team points scored on the graph that has what looks like scribbles outlining the game to game point variance between the Houston Rockets and the Dallas Mavericks. I found this graph very hard to read, it is very unclear and quite messy which made it almost impossible to fully understand.

Statistics or experiments? Jenna McPhail

2023-03-30 21:26:54 UTC

I feel that the current ways we measure behaviour in psychology, sometimes using statistics and sometimes using actual experiments go hand in hand together. In order for researchers to learn new things about people, I believe experiments are necessary in order to test new hypothesis, or even old ones to gain new or better understandings. I do trust many statistics but i think we need to incorporate both.

P Value

2023-04-05 21:44:02 UTC

1. Effect size measures differ from p values in that they depict the influence an IV has on a DV as opposed to the likelihood that results were attained by chance. We typically search for decreasing p values and a greater effect size (sometimes denoted as Cohen's d) in a study rejecting the null hypothesis.

2. Even if the effect size is small, a big enough sample size can typically detect statistical significance. This can lead to a Type 1 error. On the other hand, a small sample will accurately represent an effect size that is sufficiently large. - Matthew B

Week 7 and 8

2023-04-05 21:45:48 UTC

Preregistering analysis plans and sharing data is a notion that I quite appreciate. It would, in my opinion, greatly increase transparency. It's understandable that an academic could be tempted to cherry-pick certain data to enhance their research given the enormous turnover of research in academia and the importance of one's research to career prospects, funding, and reputations.

Week 6 - Matthew Bartos

2023-04-05 22:37:07 UTC

I believe that the present methods of measuring behaviour in psychology, which occasionally use statistics and occasionally use actual experiments, work well together. I think experiments are essential for testing new hypotheses or even old ones in order to get new or better understandings in order for researchers to discover new things about individuals. I do believe in many statistics, but I believe both should be used.

When does it really mean something?

2023-04-10 23:18:58 UTC

Assuming were just meant to answer the prompt?

Significance is important because it lets us know when our numbers are actually... well... significant!

When we take a large group of people (or a sample) and we test them over the course of a few trials. their scores can add up in any number of ways.

The importance of p values and alpha are to indicate to us whether our variables reasonably effect things in a way that truly matters.

In the linked article, we see differences in study styles and academic performance. our p values and alpha will let us know if study styles significantly impact academic performances, much like we briefly covered in class.

- Jacob Dolan

Are p values really that confusing?

2023-04-10 23:24:29 UTC

Perhaps the p value is a little more confusing than the average statistician would think.

When we first brought up p values and significance there were questions of what it means to be insignificant vs significant. Moreover, I brought this into my daily like and had asked some friends and family (much to their dismay)

It appears that when something isnt significant, it is deemed as unimportant or worthless, and that only the significant values truly matter. I believe this comes down to the cultural understanding of what significant actually means, vs how we use it in statistics. Much like how negative and positive so not indicate good and bad, significance does not deem worth so much as level of impact so to say. that being said insignificant scores are not worthless, just not incredibly impactful

- Jacob Dolan

Why re-invent the wheel?

2023-04-10 23:32:57 UTC

While it has something interesting origins, we cannot deny that these methods have proven themselves as a solid methodology for measuring and scoring behaviors.

While a testing a sample is not a guaranteed reflection of the population, by testing multiple samples of different randomly assigned groups, no doubt we could build a concept of how the population truly appears?

I would also ask what other, better ways to we have to get ourselves numbers and measures of significance?

Id love to see other approaches, however this is by no mean ineffective In the end, many things have been created for one purpose, and have been found to be really effective for another purpose

- Jacob Dolan

Week 5 - Matthew Bartps

2023-04-12 22:47:24 UTC

Our dependence on the bell curve, in my opinion, is due to the fact that it is straightforward, simple to understand, and easily applied to provide us with answers to a wide range of questions—even if those responses are incorrect. I believe it has evolved into a kind of heuristic in many ways. an easy approach to describe difficult phenomena. We are more prone to depend on the bell curve to explain behaviours even when it is inappropriate because the bell curve is used to interpret data across a wide range of fields, giving it a sense of universality. By becoming aware of it, we become less inclined to use it, just like with any heuristic or cognitive bias.

average wage - Matthew Bartos

2023-04-12 22:50:18 UTC

The concept of an average wage has a number of potential flaws that can limit its usefulness. For one, the mean (or average) can be heavily influenced by outliers, such as extremely high or low earners, which may skew the overall figure. In addition, different industries, regions, and types of employment may have vastly different wage distributions, making a single average wage figure less meaningful. Finally, the average wage doesn't provide any information on how wages are distributed among workers, which can be an important consideration when examining income inequality or the impact of policies such as minimum wage laws. To get a more accurate understanding of wage trends, it's often necessary to examine multiple measures, such as the median, mode, and percentiles.

Significance

2023-04-20 19:16:22 UTC

Effect size can help us to see how meaningful realationships between variables are, while p values shows us if it is significant.

If sample size increases, it can affect p value. Hence, make it significant even if there is no meaningul relationships between variables between groups.

-Danil

Null Hypothesis

2023-04-20 19:31:42 UTC

It was very interesting to read about a different perspective on a Null hypothesis. Learning about it, I unintentionally encoded a null hypothesis and concepts surrounding it as facts. And that's why it was very interesting to learn about a completely different perspective on it that doubts what is accepted by most people nowadays. Thinking about it right now, it seems like research is very biassed towards a null hypothesis in attempts to avoid error 1. Researchers seem to be very concrete when it comes to thresholds for a p value. This article, on the other hand, gave me a lot to think about, and I believe it is biassed and idealises the perception of research in general.

- Danil

Current methods are excellent

2023-04-20 19:35:19 UTC

I beleive that nowadays, research is the most well-defined and structured. Different concepts such as validity and reliability helps to create a research that contributes to the society while staying reliable. Despite this, research seems to be too contolled and well-framed, with not a lot of room for experiments. It can be a downside of a current system.

-Danil