Page 254 - Invited Paper Session (IPS) - Volume 2

IPS236 Eva L.
A certain level of statistical knowledge (statistical culture) is needed in the
case of all three groups of users. It is well-known that – in the majority of the
cases – „tourists” have the poorest statistical knowledge, culture while the
knowledge of the „miners” is – in most of cases – adequate. The improvement
of statistical knowledge, culture is an important issue for all three groups, but
requires very different tools. While in the case of „miners” and „farmers” tailor-
made courses, trainings can lead to good results, other tools (actions) should
be designed, used for „tourists” and for public opinion.

3. Results

Some examples
For a few years ago, the Hungarian Statistical Association has been sending
quarterly electronic Newsletter to all the members of the Statistical
Association – while the news are available on its homepage, some of the
presentations are available on You Tube too.
The Hungarian Statistical Association has experienced – in the past 5 years
– that one of the most efficient tools to shape public opinion is to organise
statistical days in an open-air museum (Szentendre). During the two days
programmes about 2500 visitors of the open-air museum attended the
statistical programmes (filled quizzes, participated in different games, learned
about statistics, data, about use of data a lot).
The Board of Ethics of the Hungarian Statistical Association has also
established a new tool to enhance statistical culture; namely, they analyse the
statistical language published in the written and electronic media. The
purpose of the analysis is to evaluate the anomalies in the use of
statistical/economic specialized terminology, including the bad usage of
words due to lack of knowledge, but also the intentional „misuse”
(manipulation of data).
The primary task of the Board of Ethics of the Hungarian Statistical
Association is of course to elaborate the code of ethics for statistics, and to
monitor ethical conduct and practice. The compilation of the Code of Ethics
of the Hungarian Statistical Association was initiated by the Association on the
basis of the request of the Statistical Committee of the Hungarian Academy of
Sciences. The Code was adopted in 2006 by the General Assembly of the
Association. Although the elaboration of the Code of ethics itself was already
a huge task and challenge, the real difficulty for the Board arose during the
application of the Code of ethics. The assessment of the issues, complaints
referred to the Board was not followed by an objective, transparent discussion
on the given case, the criticism had serious negative consequences that could
not yet be overcome. This shows that there are still measures to be taken in
the field of statistical culture.

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