DIGITALCOVID-19 NEWS A WAY TO PROMOTE STATISTICS CLASSES
1 Escola Superior de Comunicação Social (PORTUGAL)
2 NETCF Org (PORTUGAL)
2 NETCF Org (PORTUGAL)
About this paper:
Appears in: ICERI2021 Proceedings
Publication year: 2021
Pages: 9574-9578
ISBN: 978-84-09-34549-6
ISSN: 2340-1095
doi: 10.21125/iceri.2021.2213
Publication year: 2021
Pages: 9574-9578
ISBN: 978-84-09-34549-6
ISSN: 2340-1095
doi: 10.21125/iceri.2021.2213
Conference name: 14th annual International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation
Dates: 8-9 November, 2021
Location: Online Conference
Dates: 8-9 November, 2021
Location: Online Conference
Abstract:
Statistic plays an important role in our society. And the coronavirus pandemic has further elevated the need of reliable statistical data to save lives. Furthermore, daily reports about the number of infected, hospitalized, and deaths reinforced statistical literacy importance. This is a challenge for communications students, since they should be able to evaluate, analyze, interpret and use statistical information. In addition, they need to improve their communication skills in order to make statistical information understandable by people who are not familiar with statistics – their audience.Unfortunately, communication students are not comfortable with numbers. Even so, teaching statistics to these students does not need to be unrewarding. Real life examples that involve statistics could help. And during this pandemic time, it is easy to find statistical examples in everyday life.
In this communication we will analyze press news using Python language. We have chosen python instead of R language, due to the fact that it has been the preferred by most data analysts. And in the future, communications students will likely work with data analysts rather than statisticians.
The main goal is to analyze media coverage of COVID-19, identifying key words and the tone (positive, neutral or negative) towards these news. We are also interested in evaluating the role of numbers in the COVID-19 news. For this purpose, a content analysis of 2025 news headlines was conducted. We have chosen two Portuguese large-circulation newspapers and we have analyzed their headlines from January to March 2021. Python was used to produce basic statistics that helped to understand how Covid-19 was covered, but mostly to do content analysis.
In this work we would like to realize the importance of using everyday statistics in the classroom. Since it is a way to get students involved and to show more interest in the lessons. On the other hand, helping them to use a programming language contributes to develop career skills valued by employers. We also hope to contribute to another way to teach statistics.