Poor mathematics skills leading to COVID-19 misinformation: research | daniellamariewh
People’s poor understanding of statistics resulted in misinformation and “fake news” spreading throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers say, as a study calls for changes to how mathematics is taught in schools.
“Mathematics and statistics were used in the media like almost never before over COVID-19,” Geiger said. “There was the use of new terms no one had ever heard about before and I don’t know if they were really clearly explained, like reproduction number . The study found that educational programs needed to go beyond simple and abstract notions of probability to evaluate the meaning and strength of data.
Professor Catherine Bennett, chair of epidemiology at Deakin University, said incorrect interpretations of COVID-19 statistics had led to misinformation through the pandemic. Bennett said people should defer to the experts in the field to explain data and not necessarily attempt to draw conclusions from statistics for themselves.“As an epidemiologist will tell you, our use of biostatistics is embedded within years of training and that’s why you have specialists,” she said.
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