Making Sense of Data in the Media

Improve your data literacy and learn how to spot misleading statistics

“We are bombarded with media statistics every day, but how much of this data is reliable?

On this course, you’ll learn how to read and evaluate data in the media and how to stay alert to misleading statistics and fake news.

You’ll find out how data is created, and how survey formats can affect outcomes.

You’ll also learn the basic principles of data analysis, such as correlation and causation and margins of sampling error.

Ultimately, assessing data and looking for intentionally or unintentionally misleading statistics will help you become a better-informed citizen.

This course is suitable for anyone looking to improve their data literacy.

The course will also be useful to those studying or considering studying data-focused social science subjects.

• What is a big number?
• Welcome to the course
• Is that a lot?
• Change and differences
• Making comparisons
• Coming up with a research question
• Where does data come from?
• Welcome to Week 2
• Studying the whole population
• Studying a sample of the population
• Collecting survey data
• When do you need a survey?
• How can we interpret data?
• Welcome to Week 3
• Reading the fine print
• What are we really measuring?
• Correlation is not causation
• Final steps