June 19, 2017

Stat of the Week Competition: June 17 – 23 2017

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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 June 23 2017.
  • Statistics can be bad, exemplary or fascinating.
  • The statistic must be in the NZ media during the period of June 17 – 23 2017 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.
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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 »

Nominations

  • avatar
    brian van dam

    Statistic: Hi,

    Not interested in any prize thanks, just thought you may be interested in this for yr Stat of the Week:

    NZ Herald article on 20 Jun 2017 (no author attributed, but included a NZ quote so presumably had a NZ Herald writer involved) on harassment of women, is based on Mid-East respondents but extrapolated/framed as relevant to NZ men.
    Source: NZ Herald
    Date: 20 Jun 2017

    ‘Stat’ is really the misleading nature of the NZ agency HELP spokesperson being quoted saying the survey results “really shows the underlying misogyny that still exists in our culture,” she says”, despite “the survey results, [being] from 4,830 men from Middle Eastern and North African countries” rather than NZ.

    Herald does acknowledge it is an international survey, and Ms McPhillips of HELP does ask for more NZ specific research, but the article immediately goes on to claim “Of the men surveyed, 64 per cent admitted having harassed women and girls in public and blamed the women for dressing provocatively” without acknowledging that may be due to local religious and cultural attitudes of men in that part of the world, rather than Kiwi men.

    Just though it may be interesting… :)

    8 years ago