Lies, damn lies and statistics

I'm not a fan of statistics at the best of times, and as an ex-PR myself, I know how easily they can be manipulated to make the case for pretty much anything you like, but I've just read a feature in last week's trade mag, PR Week magazine, entitled 'Reputation Survey' Educational standards.  If this were handed in by one of my students it would struggle to acheive a pass mark.  Look beyong the pretty graphics and alarmist statistics emblazened across the page and you find, well, not a lot really.  It's content is descriptive and banal and there is no attempt to actually interpret or analyse the results of this survey. So 57% of people surveyed think that degrees are 'ten-a-penny' (their words not mine!), so what?  What does this mean?  Who are these people surveyed?  If they are business leaders and recruiters then are the authors suggesting that would-be students should choose another path?  Or merely pointing out that a degree might not be worth what students think it is?

If, on the other hand, the people surveyed are not in a position to recruit graduates or influence their lives in any way, then does it matter whether they think degrees are 'ten-a-penny' or not?

We simply don't know because the article doesn't give us any clues.  A more interesting and interested journalist might have done some background research on the state of higher education in the UK, interviewed some academics or senior HE policy makers, students or graduates; they might have used this information to analyse the results and contacted senior reputation management experts, such as the excellent, Jonathan Hemus at Insignia Communications, to suggest ways in which the reputation of HE in this country could be improved but instead all we got was numbers.

Statistics in this case were the whole argument - they say this, so they must right - but statistics rarely tell the full story and can be too easily manipulated to tell pretty much any story you like; without critical analysis, research and thought, they are just numbers on a page devoid of meaning, no matter how big you make them!  So what could have been an informed, interesting and lively discussion piece was simply all pretty graphics and no substance.  What a wasted opportunity!

Pastures new

Hello!  I've been away for a while - well, quite a long while actually!  But I've not been idle.  The eagle-eyed amongst you will notice that I am no longer working at Wolverhampton University. Apologies to those students that I wasn't able to say 'goodbye' to personally - you'll be in good hands with Emma!

So I am now safely relocated to Manchester in my shiny new office, well, new to me anyway! I won't go as far as to say that I have settled in but I'm getting there; it's certainly starting to feel a lot less 'foreign'.

As we are gearing up for term to start again, I will once again use this space to flag interesting developments in PR, including internships, news, events and opinion.