April 6, 2015

Stat of the Week Competition: April 4 – 10 2015

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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 April 10 2015.
  • Statistics can be bad, exemplary or fascinating.
  • The statistic must be in the NZ media during the period of April 4 – 10 2015 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
    Andrew Mardon

    Statistic: The Northern Advocate references a survey carried out by the local principal’s association on school children without lunches which found that 22% of students from schools surveyed turn up with no, or very little lunch.
    Source: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/northern-advocate/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503450&objectid=11428311
    Date: 6/02/15

    The survey is self selecting, therefore it’s possible the bulk of the schools responding are those with very high (or very low) levels of lunchless children.

    Nevertheless, the article then goes on to state – “Taking into account there were 105 more schools in Northland that did not respond, the total number of students was likely much higher.”

    Speculation all round.

    9 years ago

  • avatar
    Andrew Mardon

    Statistic: As above
    Source: As above
    Date: 6/4/2015

    Re my earlier submission: To be fair, the article did state the total NUMBER of students was likely much higher, rather than the total proportion – that diminishes my point a little.

    But I’ll stick with the submission, it’s still a generally poor show of stats reporting (from April, not February)

    9 years ago