October 1, 2012
Stat of the Week Competition: September 29 – October 5 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 October 5 2012.
- Statistics can be bad, exemplary or fascinating.
- The statistic must be in the NZ media during the period of September 29 – October 5 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: “nationally there had been a 3.5 per cent decrease in the number of vehicles stolen”
Source: Car theft figures doubted – NZ Herald
Date: October 2 2012
This story doesn’t make sense. The person photographed in the story doesn’t believe the crime figures. This often occurs because a person thinks a crime is under or over reported because it has or hasn’t happened to them.
According to the article Ms Palacio does not believe the crime figure for cars has gone down. However, she complains about police response from her and her friends reporting of the thefts. Any report of theft would be included in the crime statistics.
This article would make more sense if:
– they quoted someone who had their car stolen but didn’t report it to police
– the resolution rate of car crime was reported and commented on in the story
– it was alleged that their reporting of theft was covered up in some way and not being reported in the statistics.
12 years ago
Statistic: Auckland University spends $100 million on travel.
Source: New Zealand Herald
Date: 4 October 2012
This is another example of the Herald’s disconcerting tendency to aggregate data over arbitrary periods in order to create spectacular headlines.
Auckland University spends on average $24.5 million per year. That’s the statistic behind the story.
But in order to create the headline the Herald aggregates the travel spending over the last 4 1/2 years to come up with the $100 million figure.
It doesn’t make sense to report spending for a 4 1/2 year period. It has no significance. It’s just an arbitrary number.
The university should retaliate by reporting that their spending is only $12 million per six months.
12 years ago
Statistic: “With just weeks before the public launch of Windows 8, users are five times less likely to be running the new OS than they were Windows 7 at the same point in its countdown, an analytics firm said today.”
Source: http://www.computerworld.com
Date: October 1, 2012
It is interesting how this article goes to great lengths to say that Windows 8 observed take up is similar to Windows 7 without the clear reference to Windows Vista.
Another example of challenges for comparing two changes that were not tested at the same time under the same conditions. Unless the test – changing operating system choice – can be randomised or test groups, it would be difficult to prove that Windows 8 is not as accepted as Windows 7.
12 years ago