Stats

I’m fixing to crunch my students’ grades from last semester to determine how much their attendance contributed to their final average. Just from eye-balling it, I figure at least 75% of the grade variations can be attributed to whether or not their butts were in their seats. The wierdest thing about me doing this is that I’m actually very anxious to see if there’s a trend. No matter what the numbers say, I know I shouldn’t harp on it too much. As Mark Twain once said, “There are three types of lies: Lies, damn lies, and statistics.”

One Comment

Trav

From my sample of 72 students, only 19% of the variation in grades can be attributed to attendance. I think that’s a bit disapointing, even though a researcher is never supposed to be disappointed by data.

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