RSSCSE

World Statistics Day

Launch of the Royal Statistical Society 10-year Statistical Literacy Campaign

Royal Statistical Society, 12 Errol Street, London EC1Y 8LX

Wednesday 20 October 15.00 – 17.00 

Series A Read Paper Towards More Accessible Conceptions of Statistical Inference 

Chris Wild, Maxine Pfannkuch and Matt ReganUniversity of Auckland, New ZealandNicholas HortonSmith College, USA 

This is to invite you to the landmark statistical education read paper event at the RSS on 20 Oct 2010

A read paper at the Royal Statistical Society is always an important and high profile presentation and discussion event that recognises the outstanding quality of the research and resources provided by the paper’s authors.

However, it is rare for a read paper to provide equal opportunities for statistics specialists and non-specialists, users and producers of statistics, other subject specialists who use statistics to get information from their data to be able to contribute to a benchmark point in the long history of the RSS. The statistical education paper by Wild et al Towards More Accessible Conceptions of Statistical Inference provides all these opportunities. 

In a paper that seeks to engage academic and professional statisticians as well as researchers in statistics education and teachers of statistics at all levels, the authors lead from the thesis that technology can be the ultimate game changer in statistics education. It can allow us to conceptualise in ways that were previously unavailable, enabling access to deeper concepts at much earlier stages of development. The paper cogently appeals to the statistics community that it should:

• draw inspiration from gifted communicators of data stories like Hans Rosling;
• involve itself in blank-slate thinking;
• try to come up with creative new ways in which students can interact with and learn from data;
• conceptualise all the big ideas of statistics.

The body of the paper brings these broad aspirations to focus on the narrow area of statistical inference and the development of a staged, conceptual pathway to inference. While the presentation stresses school-level statistics, it applies also to tertiary service courses and workplace education. With creative approaches, statistics at all these levels can become much more ambitious, exciting and useful. 

For us it is not only about the paper and the event but about exploiting the opportunity provided by the paper to make as big as splash for statistical education to a general audience as is possible.  And we’d like you to help either by attending and contributing to the discussion or by commenting in writing on the paper – all submitted comments normally appear in the journal when the paper is published. Details of how to contribute and a pre-print of the paper can be found at here.

There are not many times and places where significant statistical education discussions happen close to the statistical mainstream - mostly it is ghettoised. In hosting this landmark paper in London the RSS is attempting to give the highest profile to communicating statistics effectively and giving a golden opportunity for all interested in the future of statistics and statistical education to help.

To reserve your place at this event and/or to contribute to the discussion, please contact Abdel Khairoun at the RSS via e-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it