Lesson 1: What Can Data Answer?

About 30 minutes — Discussion-based lesson

What You Will Learn

This lesson covers:

Questions data CAN answer: How many? How often? Which is most common?
Questions data CANNOT answer: What is the best? Is this fair? What should I do?
Turning opinion questions into data questions
Practice: sort 20 questions into 'data can answer' and 'data cannot answer'

Questions data CAN answer: How many? How often? Which is most common?

This section covers the key ideas about questions data can answer: how many? how often? which is most common?. Discuss with your group or family and explore the concepts together.

Questions data CANNOT answer: What is the best? Is this fair? What should I do?

This section covers the key ideas about questions data cannot answer: what is the best? is this fair? what should i do?. Discuss with your group or family and explore the concepts together.

Turning opinion questions into data questions

This section covers the key ideas about turning opinion questions into data questions. Discuss with your group or family and explore the concepts together.

Practice: sort 20 questions into 'data can answer' and 'data cannot answer'

This section covers the key ideas about practice: sort 20 questions into 'data can answer' and 'data cannot answer'. Discuss with your group or family and explore the concepts together.

Check Your Understanding

1. Give an example of a question data can answer.

Answer: 'What is the most popular lunch in our cafeteria?' — you can count and compare. Data answers questions about amounts, frequencies, and comparisons.

2. Give an example of a question data cannot answer.

Answer: 'What is the best flavor of ice cream?' — this is an opinion, not a fact. Data can tell you the most popular flavor, but not the 'best' one.

3. Can you turn an opinion question into a data question?

Answer: Yes! 'What is the best sport?' becomes 'Which sport do the most students in our class play?' The second question can be answered by collecting data.

4. Why is it important to know which questions data can answer?

Answer: Because asking the wrong type of question wastes time and gives misleading results. Data scientists always check their question first.

Key Takeaways

Questions data CAN answer: How many? How often? Which is most common?
Questions data CANNOT answer: What is the best? Is this fair? What should I do?
Turning opinion questions into data questions
Practice: sort 20 questions into 'data can answer' and 'data cannot answer'

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