September 24, 2012
Stat of the Week Competition: September 22 – 28 2012
Each week, we would like to invite readers of Stats Chat to submit nominations for our Stat of the Week competition and be in with the chance to win an iTunes voucher.
Here’s how it works:
- Anyone may add a comment on this post to nominate their Stat of the Week candidate before midday Friday September 28 2012.
- Statistics can be bad, exemplary or fascinating.
- The statistic must be in the NZ media during the period of September 22 – 28 2012 inclusive.
- Quote the statistic, when and where it was published and tell us why it should be our Stat of the Week.
Next Monday at midday we’ll announce the winner of this week’s Stat of the Week competition, and start a new one.
The fine print:
- Judging will be conducted by the blog moderator in liaison with staff at the Department of Statistics, The University of Auckland.
- The judges’ decision will be final.
- The judges can decide not to award a prize if they do not believe a suitable statistic has been posted in the preceeding week.
- Only the first nomination of any individual example of a statistic used in the NZ media will qualify for the competition.
- Individual posts on Stats Chat are just the opinions of their authors, who can criticise anyone who they feel deserves it, but the Stat of the Week award involves the Department of Statistics more officially. For that reason, we will not award Stat of the Week for a statistic coming from anyone at the University of Auckland outside the Statistics department. You can still nominate and discuss them, but the nomination won’t be eligible for the prize.
- Employees (other than student employees) of the Statistics department at the University of Auckland are not eligible to win.
- The person posting the winning entry will receive a $20 iTunes voucher.
- The blog moderator will contact the winner via their notified email address and advise the details of the $20 iTunes voucher to that same email address.
- The competition will commence Monday 8 August 2011 and continue until cancellation is notified on the blog.
Rachel Cunliffe is the co-director of CensusAtSchool and currently consults for the Department of Statistics. Her interests include statistical literacy, social media and blogging. See all posts by Rachel Cunliffe »
Statistic: “Thousands of Christchurch workers will not return”
Source: Fairfax
Date: 25 Sep 2012
Canterbury University surveyed firms that have relocated from the Christchurch CBD out into the suburbs, and found that about half were happy where they were and unlikely to return to the CBD. They conclude that the rebuilt CBD is likely to be populated by different types of businesses.
The reporting itself is OK, but the headline is appalling – first implying that they’ve abandoned Christchurch altogether (as opposed to moving a few miles down the road), then by switching from firms to workers it implies that there won’t be any new jobs created in the rebuilt CBD.
12 years ago
Statistic: National Standards results are better in big class sizes – but also if your school name starts with an “I”:
http://www.ben.geek.nz/2012/09/schools-names-starting-with-i-work/
Source: nz herald, http://www.ben.geek.nz
Date: Sunday 22 Sept
Can’t think of a better case of “ropey” data producing ropey conclusions, can you?
12 years ago
Statistic: “Wellington road policing manager Inspector Pete Baird said most buses trundled along the Golden Mile at between 13kmh and 17kmh but getting hit by a 12-tonne bus “is like getting hit by a car at 140kmh”.
Source: Stuff
Date: 26 Sep 2012
Commenters at http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2012/09/is_this_correct.html#comments have usefully pointed out that this is a stat which appears correct on the surface, but in real life is misleading.
12 years ago
Statistic: The Herald on Sunday “bigger class size improves performance” correlation is shown to be based on the inclusion of 7 outliers which are small special needs schools and shouldn’t have been included in the analysis.
Source: dim post
Date: sept 23, 2012
This might be subsumed under Stephanie Mills’ nomination about the Herald on Sunday story that bigger class size increases performance on National Standards…but I think it stands on its own as an excellent use of simple plotting to spot outliers, and a good reminder that you should always examine your data carefully before you do correlation or regression.
12 years ago