[eDebate] follow-up to interesting stats

[NEIL BERCH]

I've gotten a lot of backchannels about those judging stats.  Two quick points:
1.  There are (at least) two issues here.  First, are women judges less preferred than men, and (if so) why?  Second, (as it appears from my data), are women judges less preferred by top teams than by those lower in the bracket?  If so, why?
2.  Several people suggested that women judges might be less experienced and thus less preferred.  If true (and there are ways we might address that), that doesn't explain the difference between top teams and those lower in the bracket in preferring women judges.  A couple of people suggested that the fact that teams who have been eliminated get lower prefs than those who are still in the running get lower preferences might explain this difference.  So, I reran the data eliminating all teams that had been eliminated.  This accounted for only a very small portion of the differences.

One last thing:  multiple people pointed out to me that the 20 (or 21) (or 23) most preferred judges at Wake included no (or very few) women.  That's worth talking about, too, but, again, it doesn't explain any relative differences in preferring women critics between top teams and those lower in the bracket.

More thoughts?

--Neil Berch
West Virginia University
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