Data experts Ted Dunning and Ellen Friedman discuss how data is used in today's digital society. They examine the enormous potential offered by big data, explain the new technologies that enable real time analytics and explore best practices fo

Small to Big Numbers: Making Sense of Data in the Media

Jun 27th, 2017 2m 29s

Dr Mark Taylor - Lecturer in Quantitative Methods at the Sheffield Methods Institute explains how to understand the use of small numbers in this excerpt from our new free, open online course 'Making Sense of Data in the Media.'

Big to Small Numbers: Making Sense of Data in the Media

Jun 27th, 2017 2m 10s

Dr Mark Taylor - Lecturer in Quantitative Methods at the Sheffield Methods Institute explains how to break down bigger numbers in this excerpt from our new free, open online course 'Making Sense of Data in the Media.'

Ted Dunning and Ellen Friedman in conversation part 1

Jun 27th, 2017 4m 26s

Interview with Joe Twyman from YouGov

Jun 27th, 2017 7m 30s

In this video, we hear from Joe Twyman, the Head of Political and Social Research for Europe, Middle East and Africa at YouGov (an internet-based market research company) about his experience of conducting research through surveys.Joe explains

Drawing a Sample

Jun 27th, 2017 7m 29s

A sample is a subset of a population. It lies at the heart of survey research. It is sometimes called a ‘miniature of the population’, so the process of drawing a sample should maximise the similarity between the population under study and the

Correlation Does Not Imply Causation

Jun 27th, 2017 3m 35s

This is a phrase used in statistics to emphasise that a correlation between two variables does not imply that one causes the other. Just because two trends seem to fluctuate in tandem, that doesn’t prove that they are meaningfully related to on

Reviewing the Methodology

Jun 27th, 2017 3m 35s

Most reputable organisations will provide some level of information about the data they publish so that we can see how it was collected, who procured it, and for what purpose. Without this basic information, we should be wary of any results dra

The Importance of Measurement

Jun 27th, 2017 2m 52s

Measurement is how we quantify objects and events so that we can make comparisons among them. Being aware of the measures used in a dataset will help you determine the quality of the evidence.

When Research Questions Go Bad

Jun 27th, 2017 4m 30s

What happens when a research question isn’t framed properly? You can end up with misleading conclusions.In this video, educator Andy Bell considers a recent news story and the research question (or questions) that lie behind it.

Taking a View From the Outside

Jun 27th, 2017 5m 52s

We’ve started to get a sense of some of the different ways that the media uses data to make you think numbers are big or small, but sometimes, to understand the size of a number, we need to compare it to something else.In this video, Mark intro

Reporting Change and Risk

Jun 27th, 2017 4m 32s

Another way that the media uses data is to report change and risk - how much has something increased or decreased? If you start a particular behaviour, how much does that increase your risk of a particular outcome? As we saw earlier, when numbe

What is a Big Number?

Jun 27th, 2017 6m 36s

It may sound like a silly question, but if we want to make sense of data in the media, then whenever we hear numbers quoted, one of the first things we should be asking is - is that a big number? If someone’s spending money on you, they’re like

How Much Of What?

Jun 27th, 2017 4m 5s

Does 0.1% sound like a big number? Stripped of important context, it’s almost impossible to tell.Context is crucial in understanding whether numbers are big or not, particularly when it comes to percentages. 2% might sound like a small number o

Making Sense of Data in the Media (trailer)

Jun 27th, 2017 2m 25s

Learn how to make sense of social statistics and economic data with this introductory course on quantitative social science.https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/media-dataIncreasingly, we’re bombarded with all sorts of data about how society is

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