9% of Americans think they could beat a crocodile in a fight. What?

https://today.yougov.com/topics/lifestyle/articles-reports/2021/05/13/lions-and-tigers-and-bears-what-animal-would-win-f

Sorry that I haven't been posting as often lately. You would think that with the summer, I would have more flexibility, but I am working hard on some writing deadlines (for a stats textbook!), and my kids' activities have picked up considerably with soccer season starting.

This example illustrates fun data visualizations as well as a t-test.

YouGov is a polling company, sort of like Gallup. They collect many Very Serious polls and silly polls like this one, where they asked participants to state whether or not they could beat 34 different animals (from rats to grizzly bears) in an unarmed fight. Their graphic designer deserves a raise for this bar graph, including several tragic humans vs. animal memes/movie clips.

Here are a few lessons you can draw out of this funny data.

Paired t-test example: They took the participants identified as men and women and graphed out the data. Which is sort of fascinating. There is a good 6-8% of women who I wouldn't cross. I, personally, don't think they could beat a grizzly bear, lion, elephant, gorilla, and crocodile in a fight, but THEY think they could. I bet they do Cross-Fit.

Anyway, this data also serves as a very significant paired t-test. Here is the data.

Even silly studies need a method section! When we teach, we need to show our students good and proper methods sections, but this funny one would be a great introduction to APA sections. I find that the memorable examples tend to stick better.

Weighted vs. Unweighted polling data: YouGov also shared a paper report of the data, which you may find a use for in class. It mentions weighted and unweighted totals, which you could use to open up a discussion about polling techniques that help ensure representativeness.

A table for the rat data from YouGov, found here: https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/07vgk5e81j/YouGov%20-%20Human%20vs%20animal%20fight.pdf

Comments

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