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FULL FACT TRAINING
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No Fear Data is about gaining confidence in using data and spreadsheets in your job and day-to-day life. Over three mornings, you'll be learning about the basics of how datasets are structured, how to plan a data analysis, how to use spreadsheets and pivot tables to answer questions about a dataset, and how to make compelling visualisations to summarise your work.
Led by our training manager, experienced tutor and fact checker Joseph O’Leary, the sessions will give you a chance to learn, practice new skills, and work in small teams to analyse data and report on what you learn to the group.
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THE FULL FACT PODCAST
Series 3, episode 9: Culture war
Renewed arguments over ‘gesture politics’ and taking the knee are back in the news - and along with it a phrase we’ve heard a lot recently: the culture war. But what is it? And how are the media using misleading surveys to exploit the issue.
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FACT CHECK
New study estimates mask wearing could cut R number by 25%, not 0.25
On the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham said a study had found large numbers of people wearing a mask could reduce the R number by 0.25.
The study actually estimates a 25% reduction in the R number, not a base 0.25.
Applied to the latest R rate in England, this would mean a bigger decrease than Mr Burnham implied. However, the study hasn’t been peer-reviewed, and estimates are based on everyone wearing a mask, not just “large numbers of people”.
The reproduction (R) number, is the average number of people that a person infected with Covid-19 goes on to infect. An R value of one, for example, means that on average every infected person will infect one other person. In this instance, a 25% reduction and a reduction of 0.25 are the same value.
But the latest R range in England is between 1.2 and 1.5. A reduction of 0.25 in the R number would therefore mean a range between 0.95 and 1.25, while a 25% reduction would change it to between 0.9 and 1.125.
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FACT CHECK
Nine in 10 girls did not say they’d been sent explicit images
In Prime Minister’s Questions and on Twitter, Conservative MP Maria Miller misinterpreted recent Ofsted research to claim that nine in 10 school-age girls are being subjected to indecent exposure on their phones, their iPads and computers. A number of news outlets have made similar claims.
It seems very likely that sexual harassment and abuse are a common problem among schoolchildren, and especially among girls. However, the Ofsted survey Ms Miller was referring to does not tell us how common the problem is.
Ofsted visited 32 schools and colleges, which it specifically said “should not be assumed to be a fully representative sample of all schools and colleges nationally.”
During these visits, students completed a questionnaire which asked: “How often do these things happen between people of your age”.
Roughly nine out of 10 girls (88%) said that “being sent pictures or videos they did not want to see” happened “a lot” or “sometimes”.
So the question was whether people their age are sent pictures or videos that they do not want to see. It’s unclear how the students would have interpreted this question, so we can’t say the figure refers just to girls or even just to students–but they were not answering a specific question about what happened to them.
We got in touch with Ms Miller, who has now added a clarification to her original tweet. The BBC, who made a similar error, has also amended and added a correction note at the bottom of the article.
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MORE FACT CHECKS
Also this week...
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All the best,
Team Full Fact
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