Week 9 — Readings & Resources

Your primary reading is Chapter 9 (in this module). Everything below is the optional, go-deeper layer — pick what helps, skip the rest.

How to use this page

This page has 10 items (4 readings and 6 videos). Allow 29–37 minutes for everything. Each group points back to the matching chapter section and class-session segment, so use the full menu when you want more, or take the quick path below.

Every video here has captions: turn them on with the CC button in the player. The chapter covers the same ideas in text.

Pick-one quick path (17–20 min total)

• The Worst U.S. Presidential Election Prediction in History — Mr. Beat
• Survivorship Bias — Eddie Woo
• Methods 101: What are nonprobability surveys? — Pew Research Center
• Sampling — Math is Fun

① Who gets asked: populations, samples, and fair draws

Chapter 9, Section “Spot the three traps: how a sample misleads” · Session 1, Segment 2, “Spot the three traps” · Remember: a random sample gives every member of the population the same chance of being picked, which takes a list and a fair draw.

• Methods 101: Random Sampling — Pew Research Center — a two-minute explainer from a survey research organization on why a well-chosen sample can stand in for a whole country, and why a street-corner sample cannot; this builds on Week 3's work with strength and cogency, since a fair draw is what makes a generalization strong. (video, 2 min) (captions: creator)
• Sampling — Math is Fun — a short illustrated page that separates a population from a sample and walks through a random draw from a full list; read the opening and the Random Sampling section, and skim the other methods. Use it while working through the Week-9 module overview. (reading, 5–8 min)
• Why was my address selected for the American Community Survey? — U.S. Census Bureau — a federal agency's brief answer to a question many households ask, explaining that each selected address stands in for others nearby; notice how the population and the sample appear in plain words. (reading, 2–3 min)
• Best Practices for Survey Research: How to Design Your Sample — American Association for Public Opinion Research — a professional body's guide for survey researchers; read the section How to Design Your Sample, which explains the list a sample is drawn from and why low response can leave some kinds of people out, and skip the rest for now. (reading, 3–5 min)

② Bigger is not better: when the method tilts the sample

Chapter 9, Section “Check the method: representativeness beats size” · Session 1, Segment 3, “Bigger is not the same as better” · Remember: a huge sample drawn in a tilted way stays tilted, so check how a sample was chosen before you check how big it is.

• The Worst U.S. Presidential Election Prediction in History — Mr. Beat — a ninety-second history of the 1936 straw poll that mailed millions of ballots and still called the race wrong; listen for which of the chapter's traps the narrator blames, and remember that the course teaches both explanations and grades neither. (video, 1 min) (captions: creator)
• Survivorship Bias — Eddie Woo — a six-minute classroom talk on a famous wartime puzzle in which the only aircraft anyone could study were the ones that came back; name the members of the population that never made it into the sample. Stop there; next week takes up causal reasoning, where a pattern in data is tested for a cause. (video, 6 min) (captions: automatic)
• Methods 101: What are nonprobability surveys? — Pew Research Center — a five-minute explainer on online opt-in polls, where people choose to join instead of being drawn at random; connect it to the chapter's point that people who choose to reply can differ from people who do not. (video, 5 min) (captions: creator)

③ One story, one comparison: hasty generalizations and weak analogies

Chapter 9, Section “Count the cases: hasty generalization and the vivid anecdote” · Session 2, Segment 5, “One story is a sample of 1” · Remember: count the cases behind a claim about a group, and ask whether a comparison's likeness bears on its conclusion.

• What is the Anecdotal Fallacy? - Psychology Facts — Biased Knowledge — a one-minute definition of leaning on one story instead of the wider evidence, with a pet-choosing example; compare it with the chapter's flu-shot passage and say how many cases each rests on. (video, 1 min) (captions: creator)
• Weak Analogy (Logical Fallacy) — Carneades.org — a two-minute walk through three comparisons whose shared features do not bear on the conclusion; for each one, name the similarity offered and the disanalogy that breaks it, as the chapter does for the college and the store. (video, 2 min) (captions: automatic)

Optional one-stop reference (free online reference)

• Hasty Generalization (Fallacies) — Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy — the reference entry's short paragraph on generalizing from too small a sample, with one compact example; read that paragraph and skip the rest of the long list for now. (reading, 2–4 min)

Heads-up (links rot): these point to outside sites that occasionally move or rename pages. If a link ever fails, tell your instructor and use the reference above in the meantime.

Provenance: Built with The Course Maker · samples.thecoursemaker.com