Cleaning Data Reflection

The difference between dealing with complicated data and cleaning complicated data. Let me begin by explaining the difference. Dealing with complicated data can be difficult. It may contain sensitive information, but is that information worth losing just because it’s bad? Steps can be taken to teach people about history, whether it’s about people, places, or things. Now that we get into the difficulties of spreading this information, a difficulty that may come up is backlash. Backlash is typical when dealing with sensitive information and can be handled in many ways, but one I would recommend is public relations. Speeches, press releases, and updates within the corporation. Another difficulty that can tend to come when dealing with complicated data is data suppression. Companies can get nervous about public opinion, so they may hold back data in hopes of getting a better reaction. This can be an obstacle in some instances because it can compel the public to do their own research and discover what the organisation is trying to hide. 

Cleaning data can be important and dangerous at the same time. Sorting data to have a more cohesive plan to explore is very beneficial, but you have to be very careful when dealing with data because people follow data for facts, and if there’s skewed information, it can affect credibility. The more dangerous part of exploring data is the person exploring it. Opinions can leak into data when gathering it; an example of this is the Watson Experiment. “Watson was interested in learning if he would be able to condition a child to fear something ordinary. He coupled it with something else that supposedly triggered inborn fear. Watson borrowed eight-month-old baby Albert for an unethical psychological experiment. First, Watson introduced the child to a white rat. Observing that it didn’t scare Albert, Watson then reintroduced the rat, only this time with a sudden, loud noise. Naturally, the noise frightened Albert. Watson then deliberately got Albert to associate the rat with the noise, until the baby couldn’t even see the rat without bursting into tears. Essentially, the psychologist gave Albert a pretty unpleasant phobia. Moreover, Watson went on to make the infant distressed when seeing a rabbit, a dog, and even the furry white beard of Santa Claus. By the end of the experiment, Albert might well have been traumatised for life.” (https://www.online-psychology-degrees.org/10-bizarre-psychology-experiments/). 

This is a prime example of how to control data to deliver exactly what you want. Data can be skewed by the gatherer, so it’s important to keep in mind when cleaning data not to include personal opinion unless the study requires it.