April Harry is a PhD candidate in statistics at Purdue University.
Jeremy Troisi is StatCom director and a PhD candidate in statistics at Purdue University.
Statistics in the Community (StatCom) is a student run organization that was established at Purdue University in 2001. StatCom’s goals include providing free statistical services such as survey/sample design, experimental design, and data analysis to nonprofit groups and government agencies. Since its inception, it has expanded to campuses around the country and continues to be a valuable resource to local communities.
As statisticians, our education prepares us for using statistics in professional settings. However, service-oriented statistics requires additional skills: effectively conveying the need of our expertise and clear conceptual explanation of a statistical analysis.
How Would We Find a Statistician Useful?
Anecdotally, statisticians have observed that a prevailing view among those less exposed to the field is that statistics is perplexing, frustrating, or, worse, useless. Some nonstatisticians have been flummoxed by an introductory stats course; others have never seen the concepts at all.
This mindset is one reason many potential clients are unaware of what statisticians do, let alone how a statistician can be a resource for their organization. However, often in their own work, these potential clients are interested in conducting customer satisfaction surveys with little idea of how to construct the survey or interpret the results. Considering that they may not know they need help in the first place, the responsibility of educating the public about the importance of statistical consulting lies squarely on the statistician. In convincing the public about the utility of statistics, it is important to provide concrete examples.
For example, a clear explanation about uncertainty when generalizing results to a larger population can help a nonstatistican understand why confidence intervals are a good idea. Further, though the client may not understand how to conduct a t-test, communicating the concept of “significant difference” is a sufficient argument for why such tests are necessary and lend credibility to their analyses.
In addition to providing statistical consulting, one of the goals of StatCom is P–12 outreach for increasing public awareness of statistics. In events involving children, what may seem like fun games or riddles can actually introduce concepts such as summary statistics or probability. Additionally, when StatCom participates in volunteer opportunities such as judging school science fairs for special statistics-related prizes, we establish the importance of statistics in the minds of the next generation of scientists and professionals.
We Have a Statistician Working. What Is the State of the Analysis?
As with any client/consultant interaction, communication is important in keeping the client up to speed. While it is of the utmost importance to produce accurate and high-quality results, the statistician also must be sure to communicate effectively from the initial client meeting to the end of analysis.
A black box, data in/numbers out approach without client involvement does not build the client’s understanding of the usefulness of the analysis to the organization. While it may not be practical for the client to be present during the entire analysis process, regular interaction and updates—whether face-to-face meetings, calls, or a short email—can go a long way toward making clients more comfortable with the statistical insight to be gained from the project. After the project is done, the relationship with the client should be maintained so the helpfulness of statisticians won’t be far from their minds the next time they encounter a situation that could benefit from collaboration.
How to Get Involved
There is value in service-oriented statistics, and that value shows in increased quality of results and communication between the statistical community and the community at large. If you are interested in improving the visibility of statistics through service in your area or want to learn more about StatCom, please visit the Purdue website or contact us at statcom@stat.purdue.edu.
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