Lesson 6

Lesson 6: Confidence in Data

 

Focus

 

In 2010, Ipsos-Reid did a survey for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada to determine how consumers felt about the safety and the quality of food in Canada.

 

One part of the survey looked at how confident consumers were that the food produced in Canada is safe. According to the survey results, approximately 96% of Canadians are at least somewhat confident in the safety of food produced in Canada, while 4% are not very confident that Canadian food is safe.

 

 

The percentage of people who have confidence in the Canadian food supply varies based on the respondent’s province, age, gender, and whether the respondent was from a rural or urban area.

 

The people that were not completely confident in the safety of the Canadian food supply gave various reasons for their decreased confidence. For instance, 28% said that food products will never be 100% safe, while 15% mentioned that the 2008 listeriosis crisis affected their confidence. (Listeriosis is a dangerous infection caused by eating food contaminated with Listeria, which is a type of bacteria.) Others mentioned that they did not trust the food inspection system or company’s quality control systems.

 

Think about how confident you need to be in the products and services that you use in your life. For instance, do you think that you need to have the same level of confidence in your doctor that you have in the person making you lunch at a restaurant?

 

In this lesson you will investigate the level of confidence given to statistical data in a variety of situations.

 

This lesson will help you answer the following critical question:

• How can the level of confidence be used to show how certain statisticians are that their data accurately represents the true population?

Assessment

• Try This 2

All assessment items you encounter need to be placed in your course folder.

 

Materials and Equipment

• calculator