Statistical Problem
It is amazing how much data you can tease out of the Internet without spearing yourself on the Official Secrets Act. Right now, I am contemplating putting up full data sets (all publicly available data) on the usual page. Then people with better statistical know-how can have some fun (especially those of you who have nothing better to do with your wonderful but now totally wasted minds). What do you think?
On a more directed note, let's consider this situation.
An institution generates data for about 1500-4000 individual humans working in it over a period of about 20 years, with the mean being somewhere around 2200 humans. These data take the form of appraisals of each of these individuals, with at least 80% of it being made available to members of the public. Of particular interest are the data on the longitudinal development of the appraised individuals.
The longitudinal development process is called 'education', and etymologically consistent with that term, it is a long drawn-out process. During this process, various interventions are applied. This is sometimes called 'teaching', but a lot of it is also 'coaching', 'mentoring' and 'having fun locally or overseas'; there are in all something like 120 definitively different interventions. The outcomes are reported in public documents in a reified statement to the effect of: "Success has been achieved. Holistic upgrading for the win."
[digression] Actually, this is pretty true in a literal sense. Success has been achieved, as defined in some ways; remember that etymologically speaking, 'success' means 'the chronological outcomes of a process' — hence the phrase 'a succession of events'. which means each event succeeds (is the successor to) a predecessor event. And of course, holistic upgrading is always for the win, or it would pretty pointless. [/digression]
What do you think a conscientious researcher would do in an attempt to improve future outcomes in such an institution?
On a more directed note, let's consider this situation.
An institution generates data for about 1500-4000 individual humans working in it over a period of about 20 years, with the mean being somewhere around 2200 humans. These data take the form of appraisals of each of these individuals, with at least 80% of it being made available to members of the public. Of particular interest are the data on the longitudinal development of the appraised individuals.
The longitudinal development process is called 'education', and etymologically consistent with that term, it is a long drawn-out process. During this process, various interventions are applied. This is sometimes called 'teaching', but a lot of it is also 'coaching', 'mentoring' and 'having fun locally or overseas'; there are in all something like 120 definitively different interventions. The outcomes are reported in public documents in a reified statement to the effect of: "Success has been achieved. Holistic upgrading for the win."
[digression] Actually, this is pretty true in a literal sense. Success has been achieved, as defined in some ways; remember that etymologically speaking, 'success' means 'the chronological outcomes of a process' — hence the phrase 'a succession of events'. which means each event succeeds (is the successor to) a predecessor event. And of course, holistic upgrading is always for the win, or it would pretty pointless. [/digression]
What do you think a conscientious researcher would do in an attempt to improve future outcomes in such an institution?
Labels: Education, Problem Solving, Research, Strategic Thinking
etched with acid at 11:39:00 am
2 Comments:
yes yes, a 100-times yes. publish publish publish. making statistics out of people's success/failure profiles ftw!
Once upon a time, someone gave a me a gift of a DVD called "The Lone Gunmen". I think I know who lone rifle is.
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