Local Hub Sites
Latest update: October 31, 2000.
jeannecurran@habermas.org.

This Multiple Interpretation Practice is based on a graph on the Internet. As we did with Nan Chico's Starters, I would like you to answer the following questions and write an interpretation on the graph before you turn to Rick Lynn's own interpretation.

If this image fails to bring up the triangle graph with colored horizontal bars, do the following to get the image: Link to Rick Lynn's Site. Then click on the third document icon. The file is called "sep.graph.rtf". Link on the document icon; then a dialog box will come up. Click "Open it." It's already marked to "save it", but you don't want to do that. Click "open it"; then click OK. That should give you the graph.

Source: Rick Lynn's graph on aggression

(Rick Lynn's Site The graph is in the third Word Document.) Click on the Browser's BACK button to return to the Practice.

1. What do you think the variables might be?

   1. Clearly the graph place females to the right of males on the graph. However, we can't tell what the axes stand for, so we can't tell what "to the right of" means. But gender does seem to be one of the variables.

   2. There is reference in the graph to race. But race is limited to African-American and Caucasian. This could be a problem in that we can't tell what was included in Caucasian. This would certainly seem to indicate that the categories might not have been mutually exclusive and exhaustive. For example, where do you suppose they would put one of mixed ancestry, Black and Hispanic? Race was one of the variables.

   3. Aggression seems to be measured along the x-axis. Aggression to the left, over-protection to the right, judging by the lables on the graph. Aggression was one of the variables.

   4. Performance seems to measured along the y-axis, with optimal performance at the top, minimal performance at the base line. Performance seems to be one of the variables.

   5. All of the above would be the best answer choice, since the graph indicates that all of the above variables were measured.

2. What do the colored bars represent?

   Good question, hmm? I don't have the slightest idea.

3. How was performance measured?

   Good question. I don't have a clue.

4. What grade do you think jeanne would give this graph and interpretation?

   Should be pretty clear it's an , on the grounds that the pretty colors don't seem to mean anything. There are no indications of how anything was measured. What does the pyramid represent? The graph is gibberish, and what that tells me is that this person has completely misunderstood the basic concepts of statistics.

5. How does this graph relate to the academic discussion on "because?"

   Many of the variables that Rick Lynn is trying to be depict have causal inferences. For that reason we must take great care in how we set up such a graph, how we measure the variables, how we infer relationships.

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