An activity on bias. Let’s study bias in an intuitive measurement.

Figure 8.3 is a drawing of a tilted glass. Reproduce this drawing on 10 sheets of paper. Choose 10 people: 5 men and 5 women. Explain that the drawing represents a tilted glass of water. Ask each subject to draw the water level when this tilted glass is holding as much water as it can.

The correct level is horizontal (straight back from the lower lip of the glass). Many people make large errors in estimating the level. Use a protractor to measure the angle of each subject’s error. Were your subjects systematically wrong in the same direction? How large was the average error? Was there a clear difference between the average errors made by men and by women?AppendixLO1