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Exercise 2-2D: Writing About Quantitative Data

Examine Table 4 in, “To be funny or not be funny: Gender differences in student perceptions of instructor humor in college science courses” (Cooper et al., 2018). With your group, discuss the following: 
  1. What information does the visualization depict? What are some interesting or significant trends or patterns you notice in the data? 
  2. How might different readers interpret this data differently? In other words, what might be  significant about this data for 
    1. College students? 
    2. Instructors? 
    3. Researchers in education? 
  3. How would your description of the visualization change depending on your audience? Together, write a short description of the visualization for one of the audiences you listed in #2. 
  4. Finally, compare your description of Table 4 with the description the authors of the article provide on page 15. How was your description different? What key trends did you emphasize? How might the audience for a social science article shift what elements you highlight or what trends you point out?

 

For a downloadable Google doc version of this exercise adapted for a remote class, click here.