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Statistical Literacy
Author(s)
author name
Prerequisites
Levels of Measurement
A report on intercollegiate athletics at a university that plays Division 1 addressed the issues of admission processes regarding academic and athletic programs. Specifically, this report discusses the trade-off between maintaining academic and athletic excellence. The Board of Trustees commissioned McKinsey & Co., a top management-consulting firm to do the research. One of the key findings was:
The standard for an athlete’s admission to Rice, as reflected in SAT scores alone, is lower than the standard for non-athletes by as much as 20 percent, with the weight of this difference being carried by the so-called “revenue sports” of football and basketball. Rice athletes are also admitted through a different process than the one used to admit non-athlete students (p. 24).
Based on what you have learned in this chapter about measurement scales, does it make sense to compare SAT scores using percentages? Why or Why not?
The Full Report
As you may know, the SAT has an arbitrarily-determined lower limit on test scores of 200. Therefore SAT is measured on either an ordinal scale or an interval scale depending on one's interpretation. However, it is clearly not measured on a ratio scale. Therefore, it is not meaningful to report SAT score differences in terms of percentages. For example, consider the effect of subtracting 200 from every student's score so that the lowest possible score is 0. How would that affect the difference as expressed in percentages?
Please answer the questions:
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