Statistics 101
What Research.bm and the Royal Gazette hid from the Bermudian people is the fact that they measured all of their favourability ratings on a 1-5 scale and they measured just one rating - Dr. Brown's job performance rating on a 1-7 scale. Research.bm used ratings of "6" and "7" to obtain their job approval number and ratings of "4" and "5" to obtain their favourability number.
Anyone who has taken a statistics course knows that when you scale up a 1-5 scale to a 1-7 scale, ratio properties demand that you scale the results metrics accordingly. Thus, if you consider ratings of 4 and 5 favourable in a 1-5 scale, when you increase your scale to a 1-7 scale, it's required by ratio properties that you deem ratings of 5, 6 and 7 as favourable if you plan on comparing the survey results.
Since the Royal Gazette didn't give you a full, unbiased and statistically sound view of the Research.bm survey, we will:
Parentheses show trend lines from the previous research.bm survey for The Royal Gazette conducted in early summer.
Who Would You Vote For?
PLP 39% (37%)
UBP 29% (33%)
Trend: That's a net +5% gain for the PLP since the last survey.
Favourability - Kim Swan
Swan Approval 30% (36%)
Trend: Swan's approval is down a statistically significant 6%.
Analysis: In the black community, 43% have an unfavourable impression of Mr. Swan.
Methodology: Participants were asked to rate Swan on a 1-5 scale. Ratings of 4 and 5 constitute a positive rating.
Favourability - Ewart Brown
Brown Approval 32% (30%)
Trend: Brown's approval rating is up slightly.
Analysis: The white community skews the overall numbers against Dr. Brown as just 7% of the white community has a favourable impression of Dr. Brown. Conversely 48% of the black community has a favourable view of Dr. Brown. Moreover, 71% of the black community gave Dr. Brown an approval rating of "3," "4" or "5."
Methodology: Participants were asked to rate Brown on a 1-5 scale. Ratings of 4 and 5 constitute a positive rating.
Favourability - Paula Cox
Cox Approval 75% (71%)
Trend: Cox builds on an already strong approval rating.
Analysis: Minister Cox is popular across all demographic groups.
Methodology: Participants were asked to rate Cox on a 1-5 scale. Ratings of 4 and 5 constitute a positive rating.
Favourability - Cole Simons
Simons Approval 9% (15%)
Trend: Simons' already meager popularity dropped considerably last year.
Analysis: Of the members of the white and black community that know of Mr. Simons, they don't like him. Of particular note is that even in the white community, Mr. Simons is viewed unfavourably. 27% of white voters have an unfavourable impression of Mr. Simons and just 17% of white voters have a favourable impression.
Methodology: Participants were asked to rate Simons on a 1-5 scale. Ratings of 4 and 5 constitute a positive rating and ratings of 1 and 2 constitute a negative rating.
Approval Rating of Dr. Brown's Performance
Brown Performance 41% (37%)
Trend: Dr. Brown's performance rating jumped 4%
Analysis: Dr. Brown enjoys strong job performance rating from the black community and, once again, the white community drags his overall numbers down. In the black community, a full 58% approve of Dr. Brown's performance.
Methodology: For some unknown reason, this is the only question where Research.bm used a 1-7 scale. They skewed the results by then counting the top two numbers, just as they did for the 1-5 scale, as a positive. Ratio properties demand that if one scales up a 1-5 scale to a 1-7 scale, they would be compelled to define ratings 1-3 as negative, 4 as neutral and 5-7 as positive. Unfortunately, they did not and produced misleading results that the Royal Gazette then turned into a lead headline.
