At 11:10 AM 6/20/00 -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>Then I also have a rule of thumb question. At what point is a rate
>considered unreliable or a useless piece of information? My example again
>and remember that it uses the "formula" I first presented above. The
>previous reports show rates of .44 per 100 or .08 per 100, etc. Of course I
>find this comical because I imagine that .44 means an escapee with only a
>torso, legs and head and .08 as an escapee with only the torso! But, many
>folks around here take those numbers to indicate that the escape "rate" has
>decreased substantially! I have seen CDC tables with a caveat regarding
>small rates and will pull those as evidence for my argument.
well, just like the mean on a 50 item test might be 29.84 ... which no
person could actually obtain AS a score ... you have to take summary values
like these with a grain of salt ... for reporting purposes ... it would
seem to me to make more sense to say ... 30 items ...
for escapee rates ... in either the case of .44 per 100 or .08 per 100 ...
you don't want to round to 0 ... and report that since ... it suggest NO
escapees ... but, saying about 1 per 100 seems not correct either ...
though, i would prefer saying "about 1" to saying .44 or .08 ... 1 gives a
more UNDERstandable idea of what is happening ...
of course, what if you are comparing rates across different prisons ...
where one is .44 ... another is .08 ... and another is .99 ... to call all
about 1 seems not quite fair either
the best rule of a thumb variety or not is ... take them all with a grain
of salt
using statistics ... and understanding what each might provide (ie, what IS
the mean anyway) .. are not the same ...
Dennis Roberts, EdPsy, Penn State University
208 Cedar Bldg., University Park PA 16802
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED], AC 814-863-2401, FAX 814-863-1002
WWW: http://roberts.ed.psu.edu/users/droberts/drober~1.htm
FRAMES: http://roberts.ed.psu.edu/users/droberts/drframe.htm
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