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Half the students are below average! This is outrageous!
Below the median
Unless scores follow a standard (or any other symmetric) distribution
There are different definitions of average and one is median
And at least two are not median. So at least two could have more or less than half below average instead of exactly half. Hence the use of a more specific term. On average, the colloquial use of “average” doesn’t lead to the conclusion of half a population being below average.
Yes, and therefore the original comment was wrong and needed to be corrected.
No, it wasn’t wrong because it didn’t specify which average was meant. If it was “arithmetic average”, it would be wrong.
It would still be right. The test results are reported on a normalized curve so all measures of central tendency are all equal.
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If you don’t specify then the statement needs to hold for all averages to be correct.
“I have a ball”
“So you have a red ball?”
“No, it’s green”
“If you don’t specify then the statement needs to hold for all balls to be correct.”And by the way: for the given plot, it is correct for all averages
More like
“Balls are orange”
“That’s wrong”
“Ah but basketballs are balls and they are orange, gotcha”
“No, you just said balls, that’s too generic, if you meant basket balls you should have said basket balls.”
Standardized tests are normalized, so…
median is an average
It’s absolutely not. Median is a value in the middle of a sorted set and average is, well, average. In the set of 1, 7, 10: 7 is median and 6 is average.
as @force pointed out, ‘average’ has many meanings (haha). of course a lot of the time, average is used as ‘mean’. but…not always!
Idk man looking up a definition for “average” is like
- a number expressing the central or typical value in a set of data, in particular the mode, median, or (most commonly) the mean, which is calculated by dividing the sum of the values in the set by their number.
and
- Any measure of central tendency, especially any mean, the median, or the mode. [from c. 1735]
and
1 a : a single value (such as a mean, mode, or median) that summarizes or represents the general significance of a set of unequal values
doesn’t look like that dude’s using the word “wrong” to me, a lotta people and mathematicians definitely recall using “average” meaning median
I agree with this. In my stats class in college, we never conflated average and median. They meant two different things.
Such irony that this comment gets downvoted on a meme about failing education
Even with a simple, yet very clear example
What’s ironic here is your comment, lol. “Average” can and is absolutely used to say mean or median or any other average that is representative based on the dataset in question. When you ask a statistician to calculate an average of a dataset they probably won’t just go calculate the mean, they’ll think about which value is most appropriate in context.
25% of people makes up a quarter of the population!
Outrageous! A quarter of the population should be 946.35 milipeople!
That’s a terrible idea!
How would you even cut off 25% of everyone’s bodies to get a quarter of the population?
My mom says I’m above average
I cant tell if this is a joke or if this guy is in the bottom quartile.
It’s a satirical account, that’s not a real politician.
There are plenty of them out there that are this dumb though.
Its a little sad that it’s this hard to tell anymore. Thanks btw
about a quarter of the population
Looks like a real educational problem.
I cant tell if you are joking or if you are in the bottom quartile.
Haha uhhhh thats funny for all the wrong reasons so I’m gonna upvote you even though you’re trying to insult me
First time I saw a statistician joke
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You’re probably one of today’s lucky 10,000.
The worst thing about that XKCD comic is that I can’t get annoyed about seeing it for the thousandth time without risking a recursive loop of comic posting, me getting annoyed, comic posting to explain why I’m wrong to be annoyed, more annoyance… it’s a problem, though admittedly not my most pressing one.
Its always about the deviation with them. Perverts.
Really? I always thought they were more just following the trends.
Behind closed doors on Greek Row those Sigmas and Taus … let’s just say they apply to an entirely different distribution, if you know what I’m saying.
Ironically, him being a fucking idiot actually proves his point.
Wait, this isn’t satire?
Edit: I commented too soon. It’s satire.
Yeah, and me being a fucking idiot proves it more.
Lmaooooo I love this save
I commend you for at least acknowledging it.
News at 11: “Half of people are below average!”
Ashktually half people below the median.
Ackchyually, they never said which average they meant, you just assumed mean.
Same thing in a normal distribution, no?
Yes. In a normal, or Gaussian, distribution, the data is symmetrically distributed around the mean and thus mean (average value), mode (most frequent value) and median (middle value) all fall on the same point, which is the highest point of the curve.
Consider an exam in which there are two questions: one very easy and one very hard. You’ll get a supermajority of people who answer the first question and two tiny tails - zero correct, two correct - such that the mode is very high and the outlayer groups are very small.
Then well over half the people are in the median and mean.
True, but those who know what “median” means probably also know what a “quartile” means, so if I used “median” it would’ve made my comment less of an “obvious, duh!” thing and spoil the unstated point I’m making as well as the joke.
Best leave the mathematical incorrectness there to preserve the feeling of obviousness.
Not in Lake Wobegon!!
Only all the children in Lake Wobegon are above average. It’s balanced out by them all turning into idiots when they become adults.
Yeah but the average is pretty fucking dumb.
I notice there is a 25% in the top as well… Coincidence or conspiracy…
Everyone should be in the top! Everyone should have unlimited resources from disabled addicts to military bioweapons developers - it should be a flat line, a plateau!
Bioweapon developers should be shot in the street. Disabled addicts should be provided the proper help they need; and the education should be changed so there are less disabled addicts and bioweapon developers alike.
Equal and unlimited are the same thing, right?
60% of the time, it works every time
I was skeptical of these numbers until I did the research. It’s even worse than I thought. Did you know that only 20% of students test in the top quintile? Is our children learning?
I was born extremely smart. I always tested way at the top of the curve… far superior to all my peers.
One could construct tests where this isn’t a given. Create an exam with one really easy question and one really hard question. You’ll end up with a huge spike in the center and two tiny tails. The top quintile of correct answers (<=1.6 correct answers) will be vanishingly small.
I can almost see a facebook post along the lines of:
One doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand how terrible things are, when fully 25% of the population are in the bottom quartile.25%!? That’s nothing. Half of people are below average. That’s twice of what you quoted!
I’m surprised it’s only 25%. These days, I’d figure at least 40% would be in the lowest quartile. Has anyone checked the math on this?
Check the math? What do I look like, a numbertician??
Damn, I was really hoping to find a mathmagician!
THAT’S NUMBERWANG!!@
Let me try.
I’ve got 4 quarters in a row, and each quarter represents 25% of people. I take the right most quarter and place it on the left-most quarter.
40% is not right, there’s 50% in lowest quartile, 25% in the second, 25% in the third and 0% in the top.
I take the right most quarter and place it on the left-most quarter.
they were not ready for these world-class 220-IQ moves
Tide goes in, tide goes out. Can’t explain that.
The gravitational pull of the moon.
But you’re right, I cannot explain why gravity even exists.
Oh FSS please don’t cede a smart introspection to that billowing buffoon
(nice followup though)
Goodhart’s Law: When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.
My state’a standardized test says kids are “at risk” if they aren’t in the top 40% of the test. The top 50% could all be traditional “a-b” students. But because they weren’t in the top 80% of a-b students they are at risk for failing academically… It’s so asinine and disheartening. The last half of the year is devoted to this idiotic test. Kids could be learning stuff that will enrich themselves… Instead they are learnig how to take a test better.
But then again, 25 percent of American students are also in the top quartile on standardized tests, so it evens out.
People understand “glass half empty / glass half full”, but they can’t quite grasp a bell curve
Nice try everyone knows that the soyjack is on one end and the chad is at the other.
Fucking genius.
