Re: [ossig] (Fwd) STI News: Firm discovers good IT help hard to find

[Teoh Eng Sin <teohes@streamyx.com>]

On Thu, 2002-12-05 at 13:40, Dr Molly Cheah wrote:

> Simply because there are sooo many variables and factors that affect
> what people do 5 or 10 years down the line that it is not logical to
> attribute it to exam scores. Therefore your conclusion becomes
> meaningless, whichever way the surveys turn out to be.
> 

i thought about the value of a survey of this nature ...but your
statement above correctly question a fundamental requirement of any
survey before execution ... will the conclusion be meaningful ?

your statement above does beg the following question ...

Does your statement apply to the usefulness/'meaningfulness' of the
large number of "statistical" reports/surveys we read daily where the
variables are probably just as wide ?

eg:  i remember reading one report which linked "high variability in an
infants weight in the first year" to obesity in later adult life ? 
(maybe this is not a good example ... but i believe you get drift here)

Are the results in report of this kind made more meaningful by specific
survey techniques (specific sampling, controlled demographics etc...) ?
or should we just ignore them ?



-- 
Teoh Eng Sin <teohes@streamyx.com>


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