The Bullshit of Data in Education
In college, I was at a luncheon with high fashion managers, executives, etc, to network. The man that was at my table gave our group some advice by saying something like:
The best way to get someone on your side is to give them some data. If I need them to want to buy my product I can tell them that this garment has an 90% sale rate and they’ll then want to buy it to sell in their stores.
I then asked him how he keeps track of all of the data to be able to tell his buyers this and he proceeded to enlighten us that he had no clue what the data was, you use it to get people to do what you want. Give them some facts that make you look good and you’ll be able to get yourself a deal. Let’s just say that was when I started to really question if I was in the right field…
Data is a very beautiful thing that when researched and used ethically, it can have a profoundly positive effect in a classroom, school, and/or community. The flip side is that it can also be used unethically to manipulate students scores, parent decisions, and school agendas. I have seen data used both ways in our school systems and I think honest conversations and questioning research is imperative to ensure that the educational community is ensuring the most ethically researched decisions are being made. In this post I am going to give you three resources on how you can make sure that you aren’t falling for bullshit data that is fluffed up to look great when in reality it is fake, altered, or twisted from what the actual research proves.
Resource #1: Calling Bullshit by University of Washington
University of Washington offers FREE (yup free!) seminar on YouTube that goes into depth of how fake information can have real life threatening consequences. The best part about this seminar is that there are a million resources along with their lectures like their website: callingbullshit.org and book they published. These resources are what started my deep dive into how much fake data there is in the world of data science and is a great introduction to this topic.
Resource #2: Understand What a Works Cited is and How to Find the Original Articles
Check yourself! I recently saw a Tik Tok (I know, I know-but it was educational). A person would research the information that people were posting and look at up the journal articles and share online what the articles actually said vs. what the person was posting that it said. It is a genius way to try and battle bullshit data by showing people just how much the data was manipulated. The Tik Tok creator basically checked the works cited and did a deep dive which you can too! If you are new to works cited it can get a bit confusing, especially with the different types from MLA to Chicago (I’ve never used Chicago, has anyone?). You can use this article by Grammarly: What is a Works Cited Page which gives a great introductory overview of breaking down any works cited page. You can then use the works cited page to essentially fact check. For example, if someone is saying Brown found that 5% of all students will have occupational therapy needs (totally made up information here) then you can look up Browns research and check if that is actually what the data showed.
Resource #3: Keep Track of Your Research Using an Excel (Google) Sheet
Find multiple reputable resources! As we all learned in school during science class, it is only supported until somebody disproves it. Same can be said for educational data; it is supported until new data/testing/research disproves the theory. In educational research, studies are rarely duplicated meaning they actually aren’t supported much, if at all. They also usually test very small amounts of students which means you should always be wary of the results if they only did a small pool of students (this I have found A LOT with special education research). So create a google sheet to organize your deep dives and find multiple people that say the same thing. When you have many people researching and showing the same results then you have a much stronger defense that your take on the topic is supported. Now if it will be disproven in 10 years that’s another story (LOL).
I hope this helped you get some ideas of how to ensure you aren’t falling for some amazing marketing (seriously they do a great job of making me want to fall for their twisted data claims) and if you want updates on when I post more Educait Topics make sure to fill out the form below.