Checking the data in a campaign infographic

What you are doing

A campaign group says its trial proves that the four-day week works. Its infographic (Text A) is bold and confident. A bakery owner who was in the trial (Text B) tells a different story. The full results (Text C) let you check who is right. You will test every number on the infographic against the full data, group the data to find what the infographic hides, explain how the infographic persuades, and prepare notes for a group discussion.

Key words:

• Non-continuous text: a text you do not read in one line from start to finish, such as an infographic, chart, table or poster.
• Small print: text in tiny letters, often after an asterisk (*), that changes what a headline means.
• Vertical axis: the scale up the side of a bar chart. If it does not start at 0, small differences look big.
• Sector: a type of work, such as office work or hospitality (cafés, pubs, hotels, shops).

Step 1: what does Text A claim?

List the five claims that use a number, from the yellow 92% circle down to the row of figures. Copy them exactly.

Find the small print. Copy it here and say which claim it belongs to.

Step 2: check the numbers against Text C

(a) “92% of employers are KEEPING the four-day week”. Count the employers in Text C who said Yes, No and No reply. What percentage of all 20 employers said Yes? Where does 92% come from?

(b) “Staff wellbeing SOARS”. Where does the vertical axis start? How many times taller is the After bar than the Before bar? Now work out the real rise: after minus before, then that rise as a percentage of the before score, to one decimal place.

(c) “Sick days DOWN 65%”. Use the totals row. By what percentage did sick days fall across all 20 employers, to one decimal place? Find the one employer where they fell by exactly 65%.

(d) “Output held steady or rose at 3 in 4 employers”. Count the employers with an output change of 0% or more. Is this claim true?

(e) Group the data by sector. For each sector, count the employers, count the Yes answers, and find the average wellbeing change (add up the Change column for that sector, then divide by the number of employers). Give averages to two decimal places.

What trend does grouping the data show that the infographic hides? Who does the four-day week seem to work for, and who not?

Step 3: how does the infographic persuade?

Write three points. Each one names a technique, quotes or describes the example, and explains the effect on the reader. Use at least one point on language (word choice, capital letters, hyperbole, imperatives), one on structure (what comes first, what is biggest, what is at the bottom) and one on form (chart, icons, colour, pictogram).

Step 4: the speech

Carys (Text B) tries to influence her audience in a different way from the campaign. Name two things she does as a speaker, with a short quotation for each. Then say whether the data in Text C backs her up, with one figure.

Step 5: notes for a group discussion

Discussion question: Does the four-day week work as well as Amser i Fyw says?

In a real group discussion you may take one side of notes in short bullet points: statistics, facts, examples and quotations. Not full sentences, and never a script to read out. Write your notes in the box: at least two statistics, two short quotations, one point about how the data is presented, and one question to ask the group.

If your teacher says so, get into threes and talk for 3 minutes. Each person makes one point from their notes, and each person must respond to someone else’s point at least once.

Step by step

1. 5 min Read Text A, Text B and Text C.
2. 5 min Step 1: copy the five number claims and the small print.
3. 18 min Step 2: check four of the claims against Text C. Show your working.
4. 10 min Step 3: three points on how the infographic persuades.
5. 7 min Step 4: how the speaker persuades, and whether the data backs her up.
6. 10 min Step 5: bullet-point notes, then a 3 minute practice talk if your teacher agrees.

If you finish early

• Redraw the wellbeing chart honestly, with the vertical axis starting at 0. What happens to the difference between the bars?
• Rewrite the headline “92% of employers are KEEPING the four-day week!” so that it is honest but still positive. 15 words or fewer.
• “368 workers. 368 happier lives.” Use Text C to find two employers where this is not true. What does the wellbeing score measure, and what can it not tell you?