Our Survey Says...Exactly What We Wanted (6)

Today's Survey...Universities UK produce survey which doesn't say anything..

Student work rates 'vary widely'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6099768.stm

The work put in by students in England varies greatly between both subjects and institutions - bringing the value of a degree into doubt, a report says.

Er, no it doesn't. The BBC even contradicts this claim later in the article "The report does not prove that the degree classification system is flawed, but it certainly raises questions that need to be addressed"

Of course as anyone who's been reading this blog over the past week will realise the devil is in the detail. In the pre-amble to the report the UK Universities qualify the results thus

"5. The survey provides the most detailed account yet of what students receive when they study at an English university. Inevitably, though there are limits to the conclusions which can be drawn on the basis of the survey. The paragraphs below set out the most important of these considerations.

a. The survey reports the responses students gave to the questions asked about the number of hours of teaching they received, their own academic effort and their own satisfaction with their experiences. It may not, therefore, provide a definitive quantification of the amount of teaching provided in English universities the accounts students give may be unreliable.

So the data they are basing their conclusions on could be unreliable.

b. The survey has produced a set of quantitative indicators which describe what is provided in English universities but there is no suggestion that these are indicators of the quality of education. That is quite a different matter, and the formal teaching students receive -- and the amount of private study they undertake - are just some of the inputs that go towards determining the quality of the experience.

The data been quantified in a way that does not reflect the quality of the actual education the students get

c. The measures of satisfaction reported here are not intended to replicate or substitute for those provided by the National Student Survey (the latter provide a guide to overall levels of student satisfaction). They have been included to enable us to establish whether there is a link between the quantity of the different types of provision students report receiving and their satisfaction with it.

eh?

d. Whilst the sample is large, it is not large enough to provide reliable information on every subject offered in every institution. Because we required a minimum level of response before the results were treated as reliable there are many institutions where results are not shown. However, sufficient are shown to enable lessons to be drawn about provision across the sector as a whole. Annex B provides information about the sample.

It doesn't cover what it claims to cover i.e all the Universities in England

e. Where students are asked to reply in terms of activity in a week, it should be born in mind that universities have different numbers of weeks in an academic year (and in particular Oxford and Cambridge have fewer than others). These results (in these and other respects) cannot therefore be taken as saying all there is to say about the amount of provision that students receive.

And it's been skewed by other factors localised to certain Universities.

So let me get this straight. The data is potentially unreliable, doesn't measure quality, linked to something isn't quantified, doesn't include all that it proports to, and is skewed by local circumstances.

How the hell can it's results be treated with anything other than skeptism. To paraphrase - "The report is flawed, and it certainly raises questions that need to be addressed" such as why hell don't journalists bother to check things before publishing stories based on surveys, when even the most cursory glance would demonstrate that its flawed to the point of being utterly useless?

Our Survey Says...Exactly What We Wanted (5)

Today's survey* - Travel site you can't book Ryanair or Easyjet Flights via, claims Ryanair and Easyjet are rubbish

Ryanair - the world's least favourite airline

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1931403,00.html

The Guardian reports "In a poll of 4,000 travellers around the world, unfriendly staff were cited as the worst part of the Ryanair experience, followed by delays and poor legroom. Low-cost travel fares badly in the study, with easyJet coming second to its Irish rival in a questionnaire of British flyers"

Er (gawd I've been saying that a lot this week) far be it for me to point out the subtle piece of misdirection in this. In the first sentence it says 4,000 travellers from around the world were polled and in the second line it makes a distinction between this figure and the number of British flyers questioned. So how many was it? Interesting as well that on the Trip Advisor website http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/pages/press_news_102506 you'll notice the press release doesn't even mention Ryanair or Easyjet. Which I suppose could be explained by the possiblity that the media get a different version of the report, targetted more specifically at their local market

Further information about this survey was published on the BBC's website. They report that the Trip Advisor survey named British Airways as the best Airline

Out of interest I tried to book flights from Stansted Airport (Ryanair's European centre and one of Easyjets main hubs) to Dublin and Belfast respectively. You know just to see how Trip Advisor punters would encounter the whole Ryanair / Easyjet experience from booking to flying. Guess what? You can't. The following error occured when trying to get a flight from STN (Stansted) to BFS (Belfast International) "Sorry, we could not find any flights between STN and BFS" which is curious given that Easyjet (their second worst airline) fly from Stansted to Belfast upto 5 times a day. The same error message occurs when trying to book a Ryanair flight from STN to DUB(lin). So I had a dig around just to see which airlines I could book flights with. Guess which airline's flights are available via the site. No really, you'll never guess...

*it was actually published yesterday but Blogger was down for essential maintenance

Our Survey Says...Exactly What We Wanted (4)

Today's Survey - Bed Manufacturer's organisation says you should buy a new bed so you can sleep better.
http://www.responsesource.com/releases/rel_display.php?relid=27806&hilite=

GRUMPY OLD WOMEN
It’s official! Women are grumpier than men in the morning.They are not only grumpier more often than men but they are grumpier for longer.According to a new Sleep Council survey, 24% of men say they never wake up in a bad mood as opposed to only 14% of women. The fairer sex is also more likely to stay grumpier for longer with 13% of them staying in a bad mood for two to four hours (men 10%).

Further the "comfort of a bed was quite a significant factor in these results,” says Jessica Alexander (Sleep Council Spokesperson). “Because while many people find it hard to tear themselves out of a comfortable bed in the morning, another 10% of participants cited a bad bed as a reason for poor sleep. Clearly these people either need to replace their bed more often or pay more for something in which they spend a third of their lives.”

The interesting thing about this survey (light-hearted as it is) is that it's been produced by the Sleep Council. Sounds impressive until you realise the Sleep Council (from their website) "is a non-profit organisation, limited by guarantee and funded by bed manufacturers, retailers and suppliers." mmmm....

Our Survey Says...Exactly What We Wanted (3)

Today's survey - Anti-bullying in work survey reveals bullying in work
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6076902.stm

Bullying hits 20% of UK workers
One in five UK workers have faced bullying and harassment at work in the past two years, a survey says

A serious issue, but why do they feel the need to back this up with a survey? Frankly if it was only 1% of workers experiencing bullying at work then that would still be 1% too many.

I only started doing this with surveys yesterday and already there is a depressing pattern emerging.

Our Survey Says...Exactly What We Wanted (2)

Today's second survey - Organisation promoting energy saving finds energy being wasted.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6075794.stm

UK 'tops energy wasters league'
Britons are the worst energy wasters in Europe with bad habits which could cost £11bn by 2010, a survey of Europe's five most populous nations suggests.

Er? How can the BBC claim Britons are the worst energy wasters in Europe when the survey didn't cover all the countries in Europe? This is an important issue being clouded by sensationalist (and frankly inaccurate) headlines

Our Survey Says...Exactly What We Wanted

Today's First survey - Children's geography magazine finds British children don't know their geography.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6074202.stm

According to the results "One in 10 children could not name a single continent. One in five British children cannot find the UK on a map of the world..."

Which roughly translated means - "if you want your kids to learn about geography buy a magazine you'd never have otherwise heard of if it wasn't for the results of this survey being printed on the BBC site"

DFS Sale Watch

6 Days after the end of "The 50% Off The 07 Collection Sale", it's now "The 50% Off The Winter Collection Sale"
How do they do it?

Er.....

Why does everyone who posts pictures on flickr feel obligated to have at least one "artsy" landscape photograph?
Who reads newspaper columns called things like "The Insider" and believes them?
Why do said columns always feature photos of people you've never heard of standing on the entrance steps of hotels?
When was the last you watched an interview on TV and thought "I didn't know that"?
Why do people think Radio 2 has got better, when the truth is they've just got older?

Chip and Pin(ched?)

I've actually been thinking about this whole chip and pin thing. We've been told by the people who know (they must be experts as I saw one of them being interviewed by Declan Curry on BBC Breakfast) that chip and pin is more secure than the old signature system as it's more difficult to forge. Er? Picture the scene. You're at a restaurant / bar etc and the bill comes. Without thinking they present you with one of those portable chip and pin devices. You happily pop in your number (leaving a tip as well). Do you see the problem? No? How do you know that this device is what it proports to be? Still not concerned? Okay let me put it another way. The smart chip in credit cards is (broadly at least) the same technology used in SIM cards. Did you know you can buy SIM card copiers. And it's not as if they hard things to get. They even sell them in the local supermarket up from my parents house. It doesn't take a massive leap of imagination to see where this is going does it? If SIM cards can be copied them the smart chips in credit cards can be copied as well. All it takes is for someone to disguise this as a portable chip and pin machine and Bob's your uncle, a device which copies the data from your chip, captures the pin number. If they wanted to be really smart they could also incorporate on of those pinhole cameras (like the ones we're always warned about being attached to cash machines) to take a photo of the security number on the back of the signature strip. Of course it will also copy the data on the magnetic strip as well. All it's cost the crooks is a meal, and while your scoffing the cheap sweeties they've given you with the receipt, your bank account is being emptied.

Er I think I'm going to revert back to cash, or to paraphrase someone "if it doesn't scratch glass I don't accept it"

Which? Watch +++UPDATE+++

Following on from the high profile Which? campaign Tescos relented and have fitted "chip and pin" readers on their self service tills. Bravo all concerned.

You shouldn't....

Trust people who use fountain pens.
Buy albums which have the best known track on twice.
Use condoms which claim to be "natural".
Think you're getting a bargain on ebay.
Believe newspaper columnists with head and shoulders photos beside their names.

Which? Watch

Bang on cue. Tesco's Self Service Tills Fraud Risk.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5406742.stm

They've only just discovered (as someone who has used these tills regularly for the past 18 months will tell you) when you use a credit card they don't ask for any sort of validation let alone a pin number. You just swipe (ahem) and go. So why has the self appointed champion of consumer rights taken so long to spot this glaring security lapse? Which? readers shop in Waitrose, so they wouldn't know that a "Tesco" is, let alone that they have self service tills.

But now Which? are on the case we can rest easy in bed, knowing that our stolen credit cards can't be used for buying bog rolls, Rizlas and packets of Monster Munch in Tescos anymore.