Should MPs be able to understand statistics?

Sorry GrannyRose I meant to come back to this, and obviously didn't.

my line of work I come across a lot of adults who have very poor maths skills. While some of this is undoubtedly down to other factors, the quality of the teaching they have received during their 12 years in compulsory education must be at least partly to blame for their poor achievement in maths.

I taught maths for decades, I had successes, I had failures. If one teaches Adult Ed Reading and Basic Numeracy, obviously these are 100% folk who've missed out in some way. To then make sweeping generalisations about approximately 900k pupils in each school year based on a minute sample is not really mathematically sound.

While on the subject of statistics, my experience in sec schools (Y7-11) was that attendance was almost always 100% in top Maths sets, but almost never 100% in bottom sets.

Yes they should. Is it likely they will? No.

Granmarderby
The same happened with me when I had Asian flu after most of the class had returned - they all started learning Latin and more difficult Physics. Luckily we had a Physics teacher in the family who spent just an hour or two tutoring me and then there was light!
Perhaps MPs need advisors who understand statistics and laws of probability.

???

Elegran
You have a drawer full of socks. There are ten pairs of grey ones and ten pairs of brown, but they have all got mixed up the dark, how many socks do you have to take out to be sure of having a matching pair (of either colour) ?

I'd just put the light on. Or buy all black socks.

But then, I'm not a politician.

Seriously, this is true.
I had chicken pox or measles (mid 1960s) this was aged about 6 - though most of the class did that year.
Anyhow when I returned to school I could not understand any of the maths lesson as they had moved on and after that never really caught up.
This became a phobia -though I’m not innumerate I just switch off whenever there’s talk of percentages,fractions
Thank goodness I did learn my multiplication tables up to twelve before leaving infants school.- even then though we were being given a message by some (trendy teachers) that they didn’t matter or would soon be irrelevant.
I know what has been more useful throughout my life, invaluable in fact.
Nearly as important as reading and writing which I’d picked up before even starting school, from my older siblings.

Education Education Education ??‍?

Growstuff, I remember that ! Yes, as a former teacher, I would like Education Secretaries to understand the normal distribution curve. Most, in post, are keen to explain that their latest initiative will re- draw this...

Sorry Chardy, I shouldn't have snapped back like that.

What I should have explained is that in my line of work I come across a lot of adults who have very poor maths skills. While some of this is undoubtedly down to other factors, the quality of the teaching they have received during their 12 years in compulsory education must be at least partly to blame for their poor achievement in maths.

Wow GrannyRose15, as a maths teacher, could we have some evidence for your first statement, please?

The evidence is in the rest of my post.

And as a teacher of adults I pick up your failures.

When he was Education Secretary, Michael Gove demanded that all pupils achieve "above-average test scores". Hmm!

GrannyRose15

Maths education is so poor in this country that very few people know enough to be able to challenge what they are told. If we all understood maths better we wouldn't have fallen for some of the fear-mongering we've been subjected to recently. We would never expect every 11 year old to have a reading age of 11 and we would understand there is no need for higher rates of tax because a percentage rate already means those who earn more pay more.

Just three of my maths bugbears.

Wow GrannyRose15, as a maths teacher, could we have some evidence for your first statement, please?

Politicians love to give out statistics of this, that and the other. Of course they should understand what they are talking about, but I don't think many do

I in 4.

There are 4 equally possible outcomes.
Heads, Heads
Heads, Tails
Tails, Heads
Tails, Tails

So 1 in 4

Yes, I think politicians should be able to comprehend statistics, the Chancellor's budget, the laws of the land and so on.

Or at least be willing to take the advice of the civil servants whose job it is to know these things.

Reading accurately what someone has actually written would be another useful skill for everyone. Those trick "problems" that teachers used to sneak in caught many out. "A squad are adding a fence along a 276 yard stretch. There are posts every one and a half yards and three horizontal rails between the posts, plus a six-foot wide gate partway along the stretch. How many posts are needed? How many rails?"

GR15 Just three of my maths bugbears. Got it!

Statistics were in GCSE maths in the mid 90s.

Maths education is so poor in this country that very few people know enough to be able to challenge what they are told. If we all understood maths better we wouldn't have fallen for some of the fear-mongering we've been subjected to recently. We would never expect every 11 year old to have a reading age of 11 and we would understand there is no need for higher rates of tax because a percentage rate already means those who earn more pay more.

Just three of my maths bugbears.

Foxie48, yes. If the statistics are served up in different ways to support opposing points of view, there’s no chance.
I look at the Covid stats, particularly any with references to different places and the different picture they present. E.g when UK statistics included all parts of the UK, and that’s compared with Wales or Scotland.
It wasn’t till last September that I found a Welsh site where cases per 100,000 showed all 4 countries and England to have the lowest rate out of all 4.

Yes but it's even more important that the electorate does, we are sold so many untruths disguised as statistics!

MaizieD

TBH, I'd be happy if they actually knew what parliamentary sovereignty meant.

(Or if they knew anything at all, some of them...)

Love it.

We didn’t do stats either in O Level maths. Calculus was my biggest bug bear.

growstuff

MaizieD

I didn't even know that probability was part of statistics ? We didn't go anywhere near that in 1960s O level maths...

I can do percentages and I know mean and median. Shaky on 'mode', though.

Is knowledge of probability vital to being an MP?

Yes, because it's vital to understanding how groups work and MPs represent groups.

You've lost me, growstuff

What groups, doing what?

MaizieD

I didn't even know that probability was part of statistics ? We didn't go anywhere near that in 1960s O level maths...

I can do percentages and I know mean and median. Shaky on 'mode', though.

Is knowledge of probability vital to being an MP?

Yes, because it's vital to understanding how groups work and MPs represent groups.

We certainly did statistics in O level maths in 1971 and both my children studied it for GCSE ( remember throwing dice and Elegran's sock question). At the time my daughter did GCSE, maths coursework was till part of the assessment and she did hers on probability based on a booklet of data provided by the exam board.