At 8:04 Uhr -0600 17.12.2007, Eszter Hargittai wrote:
Mary-Helen mentioned earlier that journalists seem to feel more comfortable discussing quantitative results. That comment made me chuckle. If you only knew how much time I (and I suspect others in similar shoes) spend explaining relatively simple statistical findings to journalists only to have the results misrepresented in the end you would not make that assumption.
Hi Eszter, all, it may well be that journalists feel more comfortable discussing quantitative results precisely *because* they often misunderstand them... I regularly show examples from newspapers to students in my classes where research is distorted, miscited, condensed to false statements, shortened to meaningless phrases or in other ways hurt. For example, I rarely see correct descriptions of correlational research - most incorrectly imply causation without a cautious note or even a discussion of alternative explanations. Anyhow: congrats on being mentioned in these important media! Despite all problems, these are still some of the best. Cheers --u -- PD Dr. Ulf-Dietrich Reips Universität Zürich Psychologisches Institut Binzmühlestr. 14/13 8050 Zürich, Switzerland iScience portal: http://psych-iscience.unizh.ch/ Publications: http://tinyurl.com/98qay