This Unit has looked at a variety of ways of comparing prices, and the construction of a price index. Important statistical ideas that contributed to this included mean, weighted mean and median, as well as the general notion of an index.
You now know quite a lot about the CPI, the RPI, and price indices in general, and so you should be able to explain what politicians and journalists really mean when they make sweeping statements about inflation and the cost of living. In the course of discussing this topic several mathematical ideas have been introduced, such as proportion, ratio, similar, absolute and relative comparisons, and the relation between different methods of representing data. Now would be a good time to reflect for a few minutes on your progress so far.
Think about what you knew at the beginning of the Unit, and compare it with what you know now.
What has particularly helped you to learn (for example, calculator work, audio sequences)?
What topics in this Unit have you found straightforward?
What have you found difficult?
If you have identified some aspect of the work in this Unit that is causing you real concern, how might you go about overcoming this? What sources of assistance are available to you?
Everybody's response will be different. However, here is one Open University student's response, which may help you to see what is required in answering this sort of question:
“I didn't know much about statistics before studying the Unit. I had a vague idea about what a mean was, but not a weighted mean. I knew a bit about the RPI and inflation but not in detail. I had not thought about relative v. absolute comparisons at all. The calculator book helped me a lot doing exercises rather than just reading. The activities in the Unit were helpful too. I did my household's weighting for our personal prices index, which helped me to understand the CPI and the RPI. I also did measurements on a photo of myself which helped me to appreciate ratio and proportion and to understand that the photo is mathematically ‘similar? to me.
I found the graphs and diagrams straightforward. Initially I found the formulas difficult, but once I understood that each symbol stood for a group of words, I realised what a concise way they were of expressing a formula or calculation ? much better than lots of words. A tutorial helped me a lot with understanding this and how to write notes for my handbook. This helped me to clarify the concepts as well as for future reference.
I underestimated the time for studying this Unit. The calculator exercises took me a long time, as I had to keep going back to remember how to do things. Now I take notes on th-e keys to press for different things, e.g. entering lists, finding the mean or weighted mean. I intend to continue with note-taking.”
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