studies

An infographic making rounds across the web is making dramatic claims that China is doing a better job of adopting technology in classrooms than the United States — but there’s one little problem: the data is virtually invalid.

There is clear sample bias in the Dell survey and infographic which sampled “[525] respondents in China [that] came from predominantly major cities and are mostly urban respondents,” C. Custer of techinasia.com points out.

This suggests a very select group that wouldn’t account for rural areas where many of the poorer population lives. Also, the economic disparity in China is immense — so much so that a small portion of the population is vastly rich while the large majority of citizens have very modest incomes. Surely sampling a mere 525 people in the most advanced cities of a country with more than a billion people is not a solid survey. In fact, it’s ludicrous to believe it is. It would be like sampling 140 people in New York and San Francisco for a technology adoption study representing the entire United States.