Seminar 1 Critical Thinking Questions (40 points total):

There are two parts to the Critical Thinking Assignment (be sure to read both Part I and Part II). Use clear
paragraphs with headings for your responses to the Part I, and then for Part II, your question to the class.

Part I (30 points total):

You have four different options to choose from for Part I. You only need to post a response for one of these
(1, 2, 3, or 4). Your responses for Part I should be 1-2 paragraphs in length at minimum.

Choose one of these four options for your Part I:

1. Find an example of a statistic that was reported in the news, newspaper, a magazine, your work, etc
where you wondered about the accuracy of what was being reported:
8 Tell us where you read about or heard the statistic being reported.
9 Describe as best you can what you read (or heard).
10 What made you question the accuracy of the statistic? Could there be a flaw in how the study was done
or in how the findings were reported?

2. Mean, median, and mode:

11 How/where are mean, mode, and median measures used in your own daily life? Please provide specific
examples (ie from your home, job, or at school).
12 What do you think is used most often in everyday life: mean, median, or mode? Please explain and
support your answer.

3. There are four levels of measurement: nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio.
13 Describe each,
14 Give an example of where you personally see these and use these measures used in your own daily life.

4. A co-worker and you were asked to track employee performance for last quarter. You gathered the data
and organized it in a table. But as you review the numbers, they look like a jumble and don’t make any
sense to you. Your co-worker suggests making some graphs. She says that different software programs can
generate histograms, scatter diagrams (scatterplots), and pie charts. You are not sure what those are, so
look up the definitions in Chapter 2 of the text. Now that you are fully informed, for each of those tell us:
15 How the graphic is set up and what it represents,
16 When it is best used,
17 Provide practical examples of where you see the graphic used.

Part II (10 points total):

For Part II you'll be asking the group a question. For this, you'll ask a question related to your Part I Discussion
Question response, for example if you chose Option 2, your question could list a group of numbers and then ask
your classmates to identify the median. So you'd propose a problem for them to solve, or ask a question
specifically related to an example. Be creative and have some fun with your questions. How can you best
encourage/reinforce learning of the material we are covering this week? There is no right or wrong way to do
this. The goal is to generate dialogue by proposing a problem for the rest for the group to solve, or asking a
question related to an example. One thing I'd like to ask for this Part II —please keep the question specifically
focused on the material we are covering this week.

Submitting the Assignment

Please include the Seminar, name of the assignment, and your name in the thread title (Subject line), ie.
Seminar 1 Critical Thinking Judy Polipnick
If you COPY and PASTE into the forum, please keep the formatting as tight as possible—so there is not extra
space between the paragraphs. For some reason with this new version of Black Board when we paste in text,
there is often extra spacing between paragraphs. My preference is to have the assignment pasted into the forum
rather than as an attachment. If you attach it to your thread—I have a huge favor to ask: please save the
document as a doc. rather than a docx (Word 2007) because many of us have to save it first before we open it,
and that is an extra step for us to take to access your assignment. If you attach the assignment, please save it in
an earlier version of Word—thanks!!