Page 316 - Special Topic Session (STS) - Volume 2

STS496 Alphonse L.M.
rather a consolidation of shared values that present options for the obligations
and responsibilities of statisticians towards the society, employers, clients,
funders, colleagues and research subjects.
(https://www.isi-web.org/index.php/activities/professional-ethics/isi-
declaration)

3.4 Review of findings
The five codes although different in style and organisation they cover the
same principles and identify the same responsibilities researchers and
statistician should abide by. AAPOR and ESOMAR use the term “researcher” as
the subject of their codes, while RSS, ASA and the ISI explicitly refer to
“statisticians”. The codes specify the obligations and responsibility towards the
science, the profession, the society, the public, employers, funders, clients and
research subjects, and maintenance and promotion of professional
competence and integrity. All have disciplinary procedures to deal with
professional misconduct and violations of the codes, including for non-
members. All stress the adherence of the professional principles and
recommend that researchers and statisticians do not exaggerate or exceed
their technical capabilities, and only undertake activities for which they are
qualified. All, except the code of the RSS, are self-regulatory, but claim that
they should be valid for all social science surveys practitioners, in the case of
AAPOR and ESOMAR, and applicable to all statisticians and statistical
practitioners, in the case of ASA and ISI. The codes do not contain specific
technical standards, but AAPOR places great emphasis on the standards of
disclosures and gives detailed indications for the information that should be
provided for the different types of studies and the ASA code contains a
detailed discussion of the type of information the statistician should provide
to safeguard the integrity of the procedures and the results. ASA includes
specific sections on responsibilities towards colleagues, other statisticians and
statistics practitioners, as well as a section on the responsibilities of employers,
including organizations, individuals, attorneys, or other clients employing
statistical practitioners. ESOMAR recommends that researchers “conform to
the general accepted principle of fair competition”.

4. Statisticians misbehaving
All human activities are subject to mistakes and applying statistical
methods and techniques are not exempted. Comprehensive information on
violations of the codes is lacking. There is evidence of violations of
methodological standards in research design, execution analysis and
interpretation. Moreover, statistical procedures are incorrectly used by non-
statisticians. There also cases of blatant misuse of statistical information for
commercial or political reasons. Although statisticians are aware of

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