Page 314 - Special Topic Session (STS) - Volume 2

STS496 Alphonse L.M.
chosen, because their activities are the most scrutinised statistical operations,
as they are involved in election research. In addition the codes of conduct of
three long established national and international statistical organisations the
Royal Statistical Society (https://www.rss.org.uk/), the American Statistical
Association (ASA) (https://www.amstat.org/) and the International Statistical
Institute (ISI) (https://www.isi-web.org/) will be reviewed. They have well
established records promoting the development of statistics and are at the
forefront in the promotion and defence of the independence of statistics and
statisticians.

3.2 The codes of AAPOR and ESOMAR
AAPOR was created in 1947, and currently is said to have in excess of 3,000
members based in the USA and worldwide. Since its inception AAPOR has
been concerned with standards in public opinion research and the ethical
behaviour of its members. AAPOR’s first code was adopted in 1970 and
subsequently revised and updated. The AAPOR membership was in general
against the imposition of detailed technical standards and instead preferred
to promote ethical behaviour and adherence to “the tradition of all sciences,
[that] survey researchers should be required to describe adequately just what
they did so that their findings could be objectively evaluated.” Hollander
(1992) These concerns and the minimum disclosure requirements are still
reflected in the current (2015) AAPOR Code of professional ethics and
practices.
(https://www.aapor.org/Standards-Ethics/AAPOR-Code-of-Ethics.aspx)
ESOMAR started as a European organisation in 1948; at present it is a
worldwide organisation with a membership of in excess of 5,000 professionals
and 500 companies in 130+ countries. It concentrates on market research, but
uses a broad definition of market research, which includes social and opinion
research, and recently included “data analytics” as well. Since its establishment
it has taken the public’s confidence in survey activities as a key factor for the
success of market research. In 1948 it published its first version of the Code of
marketing and social research practice. Since 1976 it works closely with the
International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) (https://iccwbo.org/?s=esomar)
and they jointly establish and public their guidelines and codes. Their most
recent code dates of 2016.
(https://iccwbo.org/publication/iccesomar-international-code-market-
opinion-social-research-data-analytics/)

3.3 The codes of RSS, ASA and the ISI
The RSS was established in 1834 in London. At present the RSS has a
worldwide membership in excess of 9,000 individual members of different
categories, from interested individuals without formal statistical training to

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