Personally, I think I have quite a number of questions that I want to ask the politicians as pertaining

to their statistical claims. Here are the questions I would ask:

Method Used

I think it is important to critically consider and rule out biasness in the sample data. Let us assume
that the program was done in low educational school, the ability to increase their educational level is
higher than in other schools. The sample should therefore be representative of the whole population
so that we can make a proper conclusion from the research sample.

Sample size and Distribution of the mean

From the scenario, it is evident that there is no description on the number of participants that did the
program in each sample. So, if the number of participants in each sample is not high, the study’s
validity is also not high. Regarding the central limit theorem, if the sample size is large enough, then
the sample distribution’s mean may be normal. therefore, if the sample size is not large enough, the
calculated mean is not good enough.

What are the possible causes of the differences between the 4 samples’ increments of the score?

If we happen to know this cause, it can be easier for us to improve the quality of the program. What
was the politician’s expected goal for this nation-wide program? Whenever we make some solutions,
we need to understand the goal of the project and only then can we understand the gap between
the current situation and the desired goal. And then, we can plan how to attain the desired goal. In
conclusion, it is very difficult to tell if this program will be successful or not in terms of increasing
scores nationwide.

Reference

Yakir, B. (2011). Introduction to statistical thinking (with R, without Calculus). The Hebrew University
of Jerusalem. Retrieved from
https://my.uopeople.edu/pluginfile.php/1188709/mod_page/content/31/IntroStat.pdf