How to teach critiquing data in the media

Year 5 to Year 6

Statistical literacy means not taking numbers, percentages and graphs at face value. Students learn to ask who was surveyed, how many, who is telling me this and why, and whether the graph is drawn fairly, so an ad, a headline or a post cannot mislead them. This is the reasoning behind ACARA AC9M5ST02.

How to teach it

1. Collect real, age-appropriate examples: ad claims ('4 out of 5...'), headlines, product labels ('up to', '30% more') and screenshots of graphs.
2. Teach the four questions to ask of any claim: Who was asked? How many? Who is telling me, and why? Does the graph start at zero?
3. Put a misleading graph (scale not starting at zero) next to an honest one of the same data so the trick is obvious.
4. Discuss correlation vs causation with a simple example (ice cream sales and sunburn both rise in summer; one does not cause the other).
5. Have students rewrite a misleading claim to make it honest ('everyone loves it' becomes 'all 5 friends we asked liked it').

Common mistakes

• Believing a percentage without asking 'percent of what, and how many people?'.
• Assuming a small or biased sample speaks for everyone.
• Judging a bar graph by height without checking whether the scale starts at zero.
• Confusing 'two things happen together' with 'one causes the other'.