Open AccessMINORITY CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SAT SCORE TURNAROUND: AN EXAMPLE OF SIMPSON'S PARADOX
Author(s) -
Wainer Howard
Publication year - 1985
Publication title -
ets research report series
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.235
H-Index - 5
ISSN - 2330-8516
DOI - 10.1002/j.2330-8516.1985.tb00121.x
Subject(s) - phenomenon , statistics , mathematics , econometrics , psychology , demography , arithmetic , sociology , epistemology , philosophy
Since 1980 the decline in SAT scores has stopped and the scores have started to creep back up. The scores for White Americans have increased 8 points during this period, for non‐Whites 15 points. It was thus surprising to discover that the overall mean increased only 7 points. This is not an arithmetic error but rather an example of a well‐known statistical phenomenon called Simpson's Paradox. In this note we explain the paradox and describe a method which will avoid it in the future.