May 2, 2016

Stat of the Week Competition: April 30 – May 6 2016

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 May 6 2016.
  • Statistics can be bad, exemplary or fascinating.
  • The statistic must be in the NZ media during the period of April 30 – May 6 2016 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

    Statistics New Zealand randomly rounds data to base 3, for confidentiality purposes. Surely it should be suspicious to the Herald reporters that the data says that people of various ages only come in threes?

    8 years ago

  • avatar

    This is a technically impossible result, there are only 121 MPs, and the first number of MPs that correctly rounds to that number is 156 MPs.

    Since in the report they said “about half of New Zealand’s 121 MPs” I suspect they got a response of 58 MPs then wanted to round things so it made it equal to 100- in this case it would have involved less error to round the No response up to 10.4 than the Undecided to 10.3.

    Rather than trying to make pretty percentages, they might have been better reporting raw numbers. We asked 58 MPs, 42 said they would consider it, 6 said no, and 10 were undecided.

    They also dropped the “considered” in consider supporting from the onscreen graphic compared to the voice commentary, which completely changes the meaning of the results- from think about supporting, to supporting.

    8 years ago

  • avatar

    Just because the Statistic box in the form doesn’t seem to post, I am reposting this

    The Story:
    Of the 121 MPs asked, 72.4% would consider supporting legalising medical cannabis, 10.3% would not, and 17.3% are undecided.

    http://www.newshub.co.nz/tvshows/story/legalising-medicinal-marijuana-what-do-the-politicians-have-to-say-2016050319#axzz47eKMd5Mp

    This is a technically impossible result, there are only 121 MPs, and the first number of MPs that correctly rounds to that number is 156 MPs.

    Since in the report they said “about half of New Zealand’s 121 MPs” I suspect they got a response of 58 MPs then wanted to round things so it made it equal to 100- in this case it would have involved less error to round the No response up to 10.4 than the Undecided to 10.3.

    Rather than trying to make pretty percentages, they might have been better reporting raw numbers. We asked 58 MPs, 42 said they would consider it, 6 said no, and 10 were undecided.

    They also dropped the “considered” in consider supporting from the onscreen graphic compared to the voice commentary, which completely changes the meaning of the results- from think about supporting, to supporting.

    Of the 121 MPs asked, 72.4% would consider supporting legalising medical cannabis, 10.3% would not, and 17.3% are undecided.

    8 years ago