One of the portfolio requirements is a report in which you critically analyse the statistical work of others.
What you should do:
1. Choose one or more examples of statistical information to analyse. You can use one or more of the examples listed on the following pages or use other reports or articles that you find for yourself.
2. Print or photocopy the work you have chosen to analyse.
3. Write a report that critically analyses the use made of statistics in the work you have chosen. In your report you should consider whether you as reader of the work should accept or reject any reported findings based on the information available to you.
Note that:
· it is not your own views that should be the focus of your report, but the way in which someone else has used statistics;
· you should comment on the appropriateness and accuracy of the measures and diagrams used, the clarity of the presentation and to what extent you support any views that are expressed;
· the comments you make about the use of statistical measures and diagrams can be positive as well as negative and in some cases a suitable comment might be that further information is needed before the truth can be judged;
· you should consider how alternative samples, measures and diagrams could have been used;
· you should consider how the chosen sample may affect how the results should be interpreted, how particular results and findings have been highlighted and how other conclusions could have been drawn.
Note When choosing which resource(s) to use, you need to make sure that your selection will allow you to discuss a variety of statistical measures and diagrams and comments or conclusions based on them.
Website Resources
Social Trends
- includes chapters on: population, households and families, education and training, labour market, income and wealth, expenditure, health, social protection, crime and justice, housing, environment, transport, lifestyles and social participation.
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/Product.asp?vlnk=13675
Transport
A huge variety of reports can be found on the Department for Transport’s website at www.dft.gov.uk and other websites. A few examples are given below.
Transport Trends
Sections on roads, vehicles and congestion, personal travel, public transport, freight and logistics, ports and airports, safety and health and the environment.
http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistics/datatablespublications/trends/current/
Driver and Rider Behaviour
A range of reports some including the questions & findings from surveys (eg Pre-driver Education provision).
http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roadsafety/research/rsrr/theme2/
Tomorrow’s roads – safer for everyone:
Review of progress made towards achieving the Government’s casualty reduction targets for 2010.
http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roadsafety/strategytargetsperformance/2ndreview/
Department for Transport Research on Roads and the Environment
For example, ‘Study into costs of fuel saving technology in passenger cars’ looks at what would have happened to the fuel economy of new cars in the absence of the EC's Voluntary Agreement with car manufacturers; and the cost to manufacturers of adopting fuel saving technologies – a Powerpoint presentation that includes a variety of statistical diagrams.
http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roads/environment/research/
NW Road Traffic Accidents Report March 2006
http://www.nwph.net/nwpho/publications/forms/dispform.aspx?ID=106
Congestion Charging
Report from a MORI telephone survey on Emissions Related Congestion Charging
http://www.ipsos-mori.com/content/research-archive/emissions-related-congestion-charging.ashx
Health
The Department of Health’s website at www.dh.gov.uk has a large number of reports and others may be found on other websites. Some of these are listed below:
Smoking, drinking and drug use among young people in England in 2006
http://www.ic.nhs.uk/statistics-and-data-collections/healthand-lifestyles-related-surveys
Diet - Who's getting their five-a-day? http://www.ic.nhs.uk/statistics-and-data-collections/health-and-lifestyles/diet
Forecasting Obesity to 2010
http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsStatistics/DH_4138630
Statistics on Drug Misuse: England, 2007
http://www.ic.nhs.uk/pubs/drugmisuse07
The Liverpool John Moores University Centre for Public Health website includes a range of reports on the use of alcohol and other health issues. eg ‘Taking Measures’ is a report that studies the role that alcohol plays in North West lives and investigates the link with hospital admissions and violent cimes.http://www.cph.org.uk
North West Child Height & Weight Measurement 2007
Analysis of child overweight and obesity data by the North West Public Health Observatory
http://www.nwph.net/nwpho/publications/forms/dispform.aspx?ID=175
Cancer Research UK – Lung Cancer & Smoking Statistics
Summarises the link between smoking and lung cancer and provides weblinks to many other useful websites.
http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/cancerstats/types/lung/smoking/
Health & Safety – Overall picture for Great Britain
http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/overpic.htm
Results from the Workplace Health and Safety Survey
http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/publications/whass.htm
World Health Report
http://www.who.int/whr/2007/en/index.html The Economy
Many reports can be found on government and other websites. A few are listed below.
Economic and Labour Market Review
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/elmr/
Consumer Prices First Release
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/Product.asp?vlnk=868
Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/StatBase/Product.asp?vlnk=15050
Apprenticeship Pay 2007 – Survey of Earnings by Sector
http://www.dfes.gov.uk/research/programmeofresearch/index.cfm?type=5&x=61&y=12
House Price Reports
http://www.housepricereports.com/OurReports.cfm
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/template/publicsite,aboutus,RTPRArchive.vm
http://www.nationwide.co.uk/hpi/review.htm
http://www.hbosplc.com/economy/HousingResearch.asp
Joseph Rowntree Association – Distribution of income and wealth
http://www.jrf.org.uk/bookshop/publications.asp?category=The+distribution+of+income+and+wealth
Experiments on Telepathy/Psychic abilities
The following websites give the statistical analysis of the results of some experiments involving telepathy. A knowledge of significance tests is needed to fully understand the findings.
http://www.sheldrake.org/Articles&Papers/papers/
http://www.boundary.org/experimental.htm
Global Warming Resources:
There is much controversy amongst scientists and others about whether or not global warming is actually occurring, and if it is, whether the activities of humans are a significant cause. Many articles, reports and books have been written giving different views on this phenomenon.
The websites listed below contain articles or reports that include statistical evidence to support the view being expressed. For your coursework portfolio you must analyse some statistical work done by someone else. You could use one or more articles or reports from this list for this purpose.
Websites with Information about Global Warming
http://www.ipcc.ch/
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: ‘WG I Climate Change 2001 The Scientific Basis’ - Summary for Policymakers and Technical Report
http://archive.greenpeace.org/~climate/science/reports/fossil.pdf
Greenpeace Report: ‘Fossil Fuels and Climate Protection: Carbon Logic’
http://www.meto.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/pubs/brochures/B2002/global.pdf
Hadley Centre: ‘COP8 - Climate Change’
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/intro/hansen_04
NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies: ‘A Common Sense Climate Index:Is Climate Changing Noticeably?’ (with links to other information)
http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming
US Environmental Protection Agency: short on-line summary with links to more detailed reports.
http://uspirg.org/reports/flirtingwithdisaster01.pdf
US Public Interest Research Groups report: ‘Flirting with Disaster’
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_environment/global_warming/page.cfm?pageID=503
Union of Concerned Scientists – Global Warming with links to information and charts
http://users.erols.com/dhoyt1/index.html
‘Greenhouse Warming: Fact, Hypothesis, or Myth? - A look at the scientific evidence.’
http://www.climateark.org/vital
Climate Change Overview - Climate graphics with interpretations.
http://www.whrc.org/globalwarming/warmingearth.htm
US Woods Hole Research Centre ‘The Warming of the Earth - A beginner's guide to understanding the issue of global warming’.
http://www4.nationalacademies.org/onpi/webextra.nsf/web/climate
Nova & Frontline: ‘What’s Up with the Weather?’ – On-line information including ‘graphs tell the story’.
http://www.abd.org.uk/
‘Climate Change Truths’ from the Association of British Drivers
http://www.accesstoenergy.com/ate/9711/ate_1197.pdf
Article in Access to Energy Newsletter
http://www.greeningearthsociety.org/Articles/2000/surface1.htm
Report from the Greening Earth Society
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa329a.pdf
Policy Analysis by Patrick J Michaels of the Cato Institute
http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv23n3/michaels.pdf
“The Way of Warming” by Patrick J Michaels of the Cato Institute
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Critical Thinking Analysis
