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3. Do the claims seem reasonable and proportionate to the research approach?
Does the research lead to broad generalisations or are they simply giving more modest illustrative case studies? This may call for a degree of critical thinking and common sense on your part.
Beware too of believing to quickly any claim that because two things are happening at the same time that they are necessarily linked. For example, research might show that people with bigger feet are much more knowledgeable about the world... but that may be more to do with the fact that most people with big feet are adults not because having small feet makes you ignorant!
Two things happening at the same time are not necessarily related, though statistics can be used to show that they are. This trick is used a lot by people wanting to show that a particular strategy is working (or that it isn't) so don't be fooled. Also, beware of numbers taken out of context. This is called 'cherry-picking', an instance in which the analysis only concentrates on such data that supports a foregone conclusion and ignores everything else. The bbc h2g2 website (link to http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A1091350 )has lots of examples that can help you see through the haze of statistical tricks if you want to find out more.
As a minimum think about:
- Does the conclusion legitimately arise from the research?
- Could any other factor have produced these results?
- Has the research included enough respondents to justify the claims made?
- Is the research offering an illustrative case-study or snapshot that is of interest, or does it claim to make a more representative point?
Last cached: 2008-09-02 01:08 PM