At 07:35 PM 8/25/01 +0000, EugeneGall wrote:
> The answer hinges only on a trivial choice made by Tukey
>when he described the boxplot. Incidentally, Tufte criticized the lack of
>information in the box width in the Tukey boxplot and proposed an alternative.
i don't think this is relevant to the issue you raise ... there are lots of
trivial things in statistics ... and every other discipline too ...
>The 10th grade math test, which will be a graduation requirement in
>Massachusetts, contained only 40 questions. Six of those questions could be
>considered to deal with probability or statistics (question 9, 26, 36, 37, 39
>and 40). This one boxplot question (question 39) constitutes 1/6th of the
>score in the area of statistics and probability.
now ... this is the crux of the problem ... given a highly limited sample
... then items should really be important ... after all ... if you consider
this to be a 6 item test about stat ... an item like this one that either
adds to your "out of 6" score or subtracts from it ... certainly adds
precious little information about the person and their understanding level
of statistics ... IF IT HAD BEEN ME ... i would have found a better and
more important issue to ask that 1/6th of the weight ... question
> I don't think it is a fair
>question, even if box and whisker plots are listed on the Dept of Education's
>document of what MUST be taught in a K-12 curriculum.
of course, we do this on typical classroom tests too ... i bet that a good
analysis from an objective reviewer would turn up plenty of trivially
important items ... but usually, the high stakesness of a classroom test is
not nearly as great
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dennis roberts, penn state university
educational psychology, 8148632401
http://roberts.ed.psu.edu/users/droberts/drober~1.htm
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