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Re: what good is "percentage error"?




Mike, you are being too hard on Frank. Don't kill the messenger. Take
your
anger out on all of the chemistry departments around the world that
grade
this way.

You know, I don't mind in the least that the medical lab techs when I was

born had been graded in this fashion in the quantitative analysis courses

they took.

Really? I would feel much more comfortable in the hands of someone
trained to reduce errors in their measurement than in the hands of someone
trained to make the measurement in a way that gives the result they
expect.

Yes, really. In the quantitative analysis labs I am familiar with, and where
the students are graded in this fashion; they DO NOT have a known result to
expect, because the answer is an unknown to them. Therefore in their
attempts to get within x% error they do their darndest to reduce their
errors in measurement and learn all sorts of subtleties to getting accurate
measurements; just as you hope they will.

Accuracy is of paramount importance here and I think it is quite justifiable
to grade in part (or maybe even in whole, depending on circumstances) on
accuracy, which definitely means a percent error type criteria; at least in
part.

Joel