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Skills for Reading Quantitative Information

Enhance your ability to critically evaluate quantitative data with essential skills that challenge misleading statistics. Learn to recognize weasel words, utilize estimation effectively, and make meaningful comparisons by contextualizing data. Understand the significance of reference values, and beware of implied comparisons that may misrepresent information. By developing these skills, you'll be better equipped to question the data presented to you and make informed decisions based on a clear understanding of quantitative literacy.

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Skills for Reading Quantitative Information

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  1. Skills for Reading Quantitative Information

  2. Don’t skip the data! In fact, you should look for the data and question it. • Watch for weasel words (some, many, a lot, little, etc.) instead of providing real data. • Use estimation skills to make sense of numbers. Examples: • If no comparison is given, make a mental comparison: “half as much”, “increased by 50%” • Compare numbers to something familiar: “10,000 people” is about two-and-a-half times the FLC student body.

  3. The Comparison Watch List (the examples used in the following list are taken from Statistical Literacy by Milo Shield) • What is the reference value? Be suspicious if the reference value is missing or incomplete. Examples: • “More doctors like Crest toothpaste. More than what? More than any other toothpaste? More than all other toothpastes put together? More than nurses like Crest?” • “Students in two-year colleges have the greatest difficulty with quantitative literacy. Compared to what?”

  4. Do not confuse more with most. Examples: • “More doctors like Crest doesn’t mean most doctors like Crest. Perhaps 12% of doctors like Crest, 8% like Colgate, and 80% have no opinion • No better value does not mean ‘best value’ especially if things are being sold at the same price.”

  5. Beware of implied comparisons. Example: • “Families that pray together stay together. This implies, but does not assert, that families that don’t pray together don’t stay together.

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