Monthly Archives: March 2012

A decent point about comparison that’s often missed: comparing like-to-like means that interventions must be executed at the same level of proficiency as controls: For the past few years, proponents of barefoot running have argued that modern athletic shoes compromise natural running … Continue reading →

I haven’t seen this graph referenced in the recent discussion around Blackboard’s latest purchase, which is strange, because it explains almost everything: A while back, Blackboard decided that the saturation and commodification of the LMS market meant that the path … Continue reading →

When things have a seasonal cycle, it’s often difficult to make direct comparisons. Ideally you compare to last year this time, or the ten year average of this time last year, but what people really want is a sense of … Continue reading →

By now you’ve seen or heard about the APA study on millennials and civic-mindedness. Turns out that millenials are not as civic-minded as Howe and others have claimed. Fair enough. But another thing caught my eye — all the stories … Continue reading →

The golden rule of comparison, we tell our students, is simple: Compare like-to-like where this is possible; account for differences where it is not. Honestly, if you just apply this one rule religiously to anything billed as a comparison, you’ll … Continue reading →

I call this a plenary workshop, but as I learned after I agreed to do it, it was not only a plenary session, but it was the only session. Apparently NELIG, at least in its quarterly meetings, is structured as … Continue reading →

Via Krugman, the scary graph of the day: Sources of Health insurance 2001-2010.  

One of the things I like about the COMPARABLE framework is how nicely it can be used not only to evaluate existing comparisons, but to think through what a fair comparsion would look like where none is provided. For instance, … Continue reading →