Statistical Literacy News 2012

Website Highlights: [10th year Anniversary]

• StatLit.org still growing: Downloads up 26%, Index views up 5%, Page views up 6%. Visits off 1%.  Around 30,000 home page views, 130,000 page views, 170,000 visits and 245,000 downloads. Added two new pages: Blastland and Knapp.  Google ranked Wikipedia as #1 for statistical literacy, StatLit.org as #2, Schield at Augsburg as #3. Wired Magazine's 2010  Statistical Literacy as #4 and the Univ. of Wollongong as #5. Schield's 2004 paper, Statistical Literacy Curriculum Design, at CiteSeerX as #6. www.StatLit.org was reviewed as a "well-structured web site. Includes a useful and extensive collection of links related to statistical literacy" by Tishkovskaya & Lancaster.

Best New Trade Books in 2012***

• The Success Equation: Untangling Skill and Luck in Business, Sports, and Investing.   Michael J. Mauboussin  [An absolute must-read!!!]

• Worse Than You Think: The Real Economy Hidden Beneath Washington's Rigged Statistics, and Where to Go from Here by Keith Quincy.

• The Rich And The Rest Of Us: A Poverty Manifesto by Tavis Smiley and Cornel West.

• Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports Are Played and Games Are Won by Tobias Moskowitz and L. Jon Wertheim

Best New Professional Books in 2012***

• The Problem with Math is English by Como Molina.

• Causality: Statistical Perspectives and Applications (Wiley Series in Probability and Statistics) by Carlo Berzuini, Philip Dawid and Luisa Bernardinell (Aug 21, 2012)

• Strength in Numbers: The Rising of Academic Statistics Departments in the U. S. by Alan Agresti and Xiao-Li Meng

• Medical Uses of Statistics (New England Journal of Medicine) by John C. Bailar and David C. Hoaglin

Best Professional Books (Updated editions) in 2012***

• Damned Lies and Statistics by Joel Best (2nd. ed).

• Predictive Analytics: Microsoft Excel by Conrad Carlberg (Jul 12, 2012)

• The Data Game: Controversies in Social Science Statistics (4th ed.) by Mark H. Maier and Jennifer Imazeki

• Show Me the Numbers: Designing Tables and Graphs to Enlighten by Stephen Few (2nd edition: Jun 1, 2012)

*** Selected by the StatLit webmaster

2012: Top New Journal Articles***

• Do Introductory Statistics Courses in the United States Improve Students’ Attitudes? Schau and Emmioğlu

• Science by the Numbers (Telic Though

• Retention of Statistical Concepts in a Preliminary Randomization-Based Introductory Statistics Curriculum. By Title, Topliff, Vanderstoep, Holmes, and Swanson.  [See below]

• Data Scientist: The Sexiest Job of the 21st Century.  Davenport HBR  Full

Top New Conference Papers/Blogs in 2012

• Teaching and Learning Confounding in the Health Sciences by F. Enders, M. Kroehl, J. McGready, and R. Carter. ASA JSM.

• Preparing graduates for careers:  Data Analytics by Bhamre

2012: Top New Textbook***

• Making Fair Comparisons: A Free textbook for Quantitative Literacy courses by Michael Caulfield.

Top 6 Most Downloaded Articles from StatLit.org in 2012

1. Percentage Graphs in USA Today. Milo Schield 2006 ASA (17,819; 19,114; 11,179; 13,253; 14,247; 8,809) Inception-to-date: 84,896.

2. Presenting Confounding Graphically Using Standardization (4,646; 1289; 2084; 1985; 1616). Milo Schield, 2006 STATS magazine

3. Interpreting the substantive significance of multivariate regression coefficients. Jane Miller 2008 ASA (3,118; 1625[11]; 2094; 1412)

4. Statistical Literacy: A New Mission for Data Producers.  Milo Schield 2011 SJIAOS (2,815 [10]; 1723)

5. Coincidence in Runs and Clusters. Milo Schield 2012 MAA (2,466[9])  [New in 2012]

6. Exploring Simpson's Paradox. Larry Lesser (Univ. Texas, El Paso) NCTM 2001 (1,686[9]; 1143[9]; 2043[11]; 2844; 913)

Top 12 Most Downloaded Articles from StatLit.org in 2012

7. Statistics for Political Science Majors. Gary Klass 2004 ASA (1,416[10]; 1389[10]; 596[6]; 765; 215)

8. Ambiguity Intolerance: An Impediment to Inferential Reasoning?  Robert Carver 2006 ASA (1,370 [11]; 1220; 624[5]; 797)

9. Developing statistical literacy with students and teachers in the secondary mathematics classroom.  Masters Thesis. Doyle (1,136[4]; 597[5]; 1811[9])

10. Importance and Measurement of Pre-Service Teachers' Efficacy to Teach Statistics... 2009 ASA Harrell et al. (1,075[8]; 1753[11]; 2506)

11. The Reliability of Measuring Instruments. Thomas R. Knapp 2009. (1,027[7]) [Newly hosted in 2012]

12. Teaching Statistical Literacy as Quantitative Rhetoric. ASA 2010 John Schmit 6up (986[8]; 1187[9]; 279[2]

NUMERACY (NNN) JOURNAL

Numeracy: E-Journal

Numeracy is an open-access, peer-reviewed journal launched in 2008.  Numeracy aims to support education at all levels that integrates quantitative skills across disciplines. The journal seeks evidence-based articles. See Vacher's NECQL and PKAL presentations. 

Numeracy Editors

Len Vacher (left) and Dorothy Wallace (right) are editors of Numeracy: Advancing Education in Quantitative Literacy published by the National Numeracy Network, supported by U. of S. Florida Libraries and hosted by the Berkeley Electronic Press™. NNN listserv

2012: Volume 5, Issue 1

• Editorial: The Joy of Quantitative Reasoning by Caren Diefenderfer
• Numeracy, Financial Literacy, and Financial Decision-Making by Annamaria Lusardi
• Quantitative Literacy Interventions at University of Cape Town: Effects of Separation from Academic Disciplines by Vera Frith
• Motivation for Achievement and Attitudes toward Mathematics Instruction in a Required Calculus Course at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology by Donna Sundre, Carol Barry, Vidar Gynnild, and Erin Tangen Ostgard
• Period Life Tables: A Resource for Quantitative Literacy by Thomas J. Pfaff and Stanley Seltzer
• Perspectives:  If Only Math Majors Could Write... by Bernard L. Madison
• Perspective: Incorporating Quantitative Reasoning in Common Core Courses: Mathematics for The Ghost Map by John R. Jungck
• Column: Parts of the Whole: Learn More, Learn Better by D. Wallace

2012: Volume 5, Issue 2

• Editorial: Quantitative Reasoning and Sustainability Corrine H. Taylor
• Comparative Study of the Numeracy Education and Writing Across the Curriculum Movements: Ideas for Future Growth by Cinnamon Hillyard
• Number Sense: The Underpinning Understanding for Early Quantitative Literacy by Effie Maclellan
• Assessment of Numeracy Levels of Mine Workers in South African Chrome Mines by Antonie Christoffel Smit and Andile Mji
• Spreadsheets Across the Curriculum, 4: Evidence of Student Learning and Attitudes about Spreadsheets in a Physical Geology Course by Heather L. Lehto and H. L. Vacher
• Introducing Geoscience Students to Numerical Modeling of Volcanic Hazards: The example of Tephra2 on VHub.org by Leah M. Courtland, Charles Connor, Laura Connor, and Costanza Bonadonna
• Review of Math for Life by Jeffrey Bennett.  Reviewed by Eric Gaze 
• Column:  Parts Of The Whole: The Virtue of Books by Dorothy Wallace

GRANTS FOR QR, QL and STATISTICS

QL and QR Assessment

NSF awards $192,253 to Bowdoin College for "Collaborative Research: Quantitative Literacy and Reasoning Assessment (QLRA)." Goals: "developing a non-proprietary QLR instrument, ... to begin the creation of a database of QLR abilities, and establishing an online resource portal for QLR assessment."  PI: Eric Gaze (left);  Co-PI: Linda Misener.  Two-year grant 1140562.

QL-QR Assessment

NSF awards $28,094 to Colby-Sawyer College for "Collaborative Research: Quantitative Literacy and Reasoning Assessment (QLRA)."  Goal: "Developing a non-proprietary QLR instrument [and] piloting it at several participating institutions across the country.. " PI: Semra Kilic-Bahi . Two-year grant 1140584.

Graph Literacy Activities

NSF awards $298,816 to the Concord Consortium for "Piloting Graph Literacy Activities in Maine."  Goal is to "develop and pilot test a limited number of free computer-based instructional activities that improve student graph comprehension, aimed especially at science students in grades 7 and 8."  PI Carolyn Staudt (right). Co-PI Andrew Zucker. Two-year grant 1256490

Manipulating Numeracy

NSF awards $369,735 to Ohio State for "Manipulating numeracy: Causal effects on judgments and decisions."  Goal: Investigate "whether improving number ability will subsequently improve how people make decisions." It "will focus on numeracy's causal role in decision-making abilities and outcomes [study 1] and on math attitudes [study 2]."   PI Ellen Peters. 3-yr grant: 1155924

NSF awards $199,535 to U. of Arizona for "An Informed Approach to Improving Quantitative Literacy and Mitigating Math Anxiety in Undergraduates through Introductory Science Courses." QL skills "include graph reading, proportionality, percentages, probability and number sense."   PI: Donald McCarthy (left). Co-PIs: Katherine Follette & Erin Dokter.  3-year grant: 1140398.

QL in Preschool Children

NSF awards $1,910,980 to Univ. of Missouri to study the "Development of Quantitative Competencies in Preschool Children."  Competencies include number, number relations, and number operations as well as language, executive function, attention, IQ, and social behavior.  PI: David Geary (left). Co-PIs: Jeffrey Rouder and Kristy vanMarle. Five-year longitudinal study 1250359

School Teachers Development

NSF awards $85,681 to Univ. Louisville Research Foundation for "CAREER: Investigating Middle and Secondary Mathematics Teachers' Transformative Learning of Statistics within Professional Development."  The goal is to investigate "teachers' statistical reasoning" and support "teachers' development ... about variation."  PI: Susan Peters.  Five-year grant 1149403

Randomization-based Curriculum

NSF awards $181,478 to Dordt College (IA) to develop an  "Innovative Randomization-based Introductory Statistics Curriculum."  Goal: Provide instructors with a "fully integrated set of curriculum materials ... that introduces statistical inference from the start"  PI: Nathan Tintle (right). Co-PIs: Allan Rossman, Beth Chance, Todd Swanson and Soma Roy. Two-year grant 1140629.

NSF Awards: 2007-2012

NSF awards mentioning these phrases by start-year (2012, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7): numeracy (3,1,2,3,6,1), quantitative reasoning (7,4,5,3,4,4), quantitative literacy (6,1,3,5,6,2), statistical thinking (2,3,4,2,0,1), statistical reasoning (1,1,2,0,0,0) and stat literacy (1,0,0,0,0,0). NSF database: QR (108), QL (55), numeracy (36), ST (33), SR (29), SL (13)??

Understanding Evolution: QL-CC

NSF awards $405,000 to U. Utah for "Building High School Students' Understanding of Evolution--Both Common Ancestry and Natural Selection--Through Mathematical Arguments."  Show how "QL and Common Core Standards of Mathematics can be addressed in the biology curriculum."  PI: Louisa Stark (left).  Co-PIs: J. Roseman, K. Pompei & D. Drits-Esser.  Two-year grant 1222869

NEW POPULAR BOOKS

Signal and the Noise

The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail — but Some Don't by Nate Silver.  "Both experts and laypeople mistake more confident predictions for more accurate ones. But overconfidence is often the reason for failure. If our appreciation of uncertainty improves, our predictions can get better too. This is the “prediction paradox”."  Interview.

Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Examples: "Rule 1: Think of the economy as being more like a cat than a washing machine." "Rule 3: Small is beautiful, but it is also efficient." "Rule 4: Trial and error beats academic knowledge." "Rule 5: Decision makers must have skin in the game."  WSJ   “Changed my view of how the world works.”—Daniel Kahneman.

Untangling Skill and Luck

The Success Equation: Untangling Skill and Luck in Business, Sports, and Investing by Michael Mauboussin. “Much of what we experience in life results from a combination of skill and luck.”  "The trick, of course, is figuring out just how many of our successes (and failures) can be attributed to each—and how we can learn to tell the difference ahead of time." Website

Half-Life of Facts

The Half-life of Facts: Why Everything We Know Has an Expiration Date by Samuel Arbesman.   "scientometrics — literally the science of science. Knowledge in most fields evolves systematically and predictably, and this evolution unfolds in a fascinating way..."  "new ways to measure the world while accepting the limits of how much we can know with certainty. "

The Data Journalism Handbook

The Data Journalism Handbook How Journalists Can Use Data to Improve the News By Jonathan Gray, Lucy Chambers, and Liliana Bounegru. Publisher: O'Reilly Media Released: July 2012 Pages: 242.   Free pdf

The Accidental Analyst: Show Your Data Who's Boss by Eileen McDaniel and Stephen McDaniel.  "learn how to analyze your data to find answers to real-world questions." ...  "find creative ideas on how to work with accidental analysts. Using illustrated examples, we'll walk you through a clear, step-by-step framework that we call The Seven C's of Data Analysis."  300 pages $26.

NEW BOOKS: INFOGRAPHICS & EXPLANATION

Infographics: Storytelling

Infographics: The Power of Visual Storytelling by Lankow, Ritchie and Crooks. In today's fast-paced environment, you must communicate your message in a .. way that sets it apart from the noise. Visual content ... can accomplish this. ... Shows you how to find stories in your data, and how to visually communicate .. them .. for maximum impact.

Information Graphics by Sandra Rendgen.  How complex ideas can be communicated via graphics. “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” —Albert Einstein.  Features: 200 projects and over 400 examples of contemporary information graphics from all over the world—ranging from journalism to art, government, education, business and much more

Power of Infographics

Power of Infographics: Using Pictures to Communicate and Connect With Your Audiences by Mark Smiciklas.  "Need to overcome information overload and get your message across? Infographics are your secret weapon."  "reveals how to use infographics both inside and outside the organization: to build brands, make sales, serve clients, align teams behind new strategies, ..."

Art of Explanation

The Art of Explanation: Making your Ideas, Products, and Services Easier to Understand by Lee LeFever.  becoming an explanation specialist.  Your product or service works beautifully - but something is missing. People just don't see the big idea - and it's keeping you from being successful. Your idea has an explanation problem.

NEW BOOKS: EDUCATION/NUMERACY/SPORTS

Problem with Math is English

The Problem with Math Is English by Concepcion Molina illustrates how students often understand fundamental mathematical concepts at a superficial level. Examine math concepts "through the lenses of language and symbolism.." Topics: multiplication, division, fractions, place value, proportional reasoning, graphs, slope, order of operations, and the distributive property.

Putting Faces on the Data

Putting FACES on the Data: What Great Leaders Do! by Lyn Sharratt and Michael Fullan.  "The authors show how to develop a common language for sharing all students’ progress with teachers and leaders, and how to use ongoing assessment to inform instruction."  Integrates "data to improve schools and systems, and data to improve the individual child's learning experience." SAGE

Mathematical Literacy

Mathematical Literacy in the Middle and High School Grades: A Modern Approach to Sparking Student Interest by Faith Wallace and Mary Anna Evans.  "helps teachers find and use engrossing ways to introduce math concepts through stories, using hands-on activities to reinforce the concepts."

Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports Are Played and Games Are Won by Tobias Moskowitz and L. Jon Wertheim.  "reveal the hidden forces that shape how basketball, baseball, football, and hockey games are played, won and lost"  "unintended consequences of referees' tendencies in every sport to "swallow the whistle," "will forever change how you view the game,".

NEW PROFESSIONAL BOOKS

Natural "Experiments"

Natural Experiments in the Social Sciences: A Design-Based Approach (Strategies for Social Inquiry) pb by Thad Dunning. "the first comprehensive guide to the discovery, analysis, and evaluation of natural experiments - an increasingly popular methodology in the social sciences" "highlights both the strengths and potential weaknesses"   CUP

Quantitative Literacy

Quantitative Literacy: What Is It? How You Use It Each Day! [Paperback] Elisabeth H Knowlton.  Targets "the mathematics of art, social science, management science, probability, statistics and problem solving using real-world applications."   Chapters: Fair division, voting, graph theory, Routing, Scheduling, Golden Numbers, and Probability, Data Analysis and Problem Solving.

Who's #1: Science of Rating ...

Who's #1?: The Science of Rating and Ranking by Amy N. Langville and Carl D. Meyer.  "the first comprehensive overview of the mathematical algorithms and methods used to rate and rank sports teams, political candidates, products, Web pages, and more."  "showing why their strengths and weaknesses depend on the underlying goal,"

Measures of Association

By G. David Garson, full professor of public administration at North Carolina State University.  Measures of association discussed in this volume are for dichotomous, nominal, ordinal, or mixed data. Note that with the exception of eta, when data are mixed by data level, the researcher uses a measure of association for the lower data level. Dr. Garson has books on  Measurement levels and logistic regression.

Risk Communication in Health

Risk Communication in Health by Dr. Nicolai Bodemer and Wolfgang Gaissmaier in Handbook of Risk Theory, pp 621-660.    "we discuss how transparent risk communication can ... be achieved". "we will explain and discuss four formats – relative risks, conditional probabilities, 5-year survival rates, and single-event probabilities – that often confuse people, and propose alternative formats ..." $525

Causality: Statistical Perspectives

Causality: Statistical Perspectives and Applications (Wiley Series in Probability and Statistics).  Editors: Carlo Berzuini, Philip Dawid and Luisa Bernardinell. "Presents a wide-ranging collection of seminal contributions by renowned experts in the field, providing a thorough treatment of all aspects of statistical causality. It covers the various formalisms in current use, methods for applying them to specific problems, and the special requirements of a range of examples..."  Articles by Pearl, Greenlander, Cox and Rosenbaum.

SELECTED SLIDESHOWS

Simple Statistics

Deming and statistical strategies to make observational studies more reliable by Stanley Young. Webinar on December 12, 2012 for Society of Toxicology - Risk Assessment Specialty Sections (RASS).  Bottom line:  1. Trust no claims from observational studies.   2. If multiple testing is an issue, write editor.   3. If data not public, write funding agency/congressman."  Audio.

Schield Slideshow Presentations

Victor Cohn (1919-2000): A Retrospective: Twin Cities ASA 10/14/2012.

Statistical Literacy & Critical Thinking Keene State College. More  5/15/12

Coincidence in Run and Clusters. StatChat Macalester College, 3/8/12.

Statistical Literacy: Math-Stat Alternative T3Conference Chicago  3/2/12

Statistical Literacy for All. StatLit at Augsburg. Lehman College. 2/25/12

NEW TEXTBOOKS

Making Fair Comparisons

Making Fair Comparisons: A Free textbook for Quantitative Literacy courses by Michael Caulfield. 

[Get current pic]

Statistics for Health Sciences

Statistics for the Health Sciences: A Non-Mathematical Introduction by Dancey, Reidy and Rowe. "clear explanations of the concepts underlying statistical analyzes and descriptions of how these analyzes are applied in health sciences research without complex statistical formulae. The book takes students from the basics of research design, hypothesis testing ..." 2012

Quantitative Aptitude-Reasoning

By R.V. Praveen.  Goal: to help students "solve the problems within the stipulated time and that too with the higher degree of accuracy. Each chapter contains numerous worked-out examples and practice exercises. The questions range from purely numeric calculations to problems of arithmetic reasoning, graph and table reading, percentage analysis and quantitative analysis.

Unlocking the Power of Data

The Lock family have authored Statistics: Unlocking the Power of Data by Robin H. Lock, Patti  Frazer Lock, Kari Lock Morgan and Eric F. Lock.  2012

STATS 2011***

Trevor Butterworth, editor of STATS, contributes to the Financial Times, Forbes, and the Wall Street Journal.

ABC's Persecution Of Presidential Award-Winning Scientist Continues.

Pop a tab and pour a lie   "white-hat bias: a tendency to distort information to advance good causes "

More private liquor stores, more alcohol deaths? A.Norton

 Top 50 statistics blogs of 2011.

Rebecca Goldin, STATS Director of Research, is on the Mathematics faculty at George Mason University.

Brilliant ideas from the Washington Post: Learning math is stupid! Goldin and Merrick. 

High Wired: Does Addictive Internet Use Restructure the Brain?

STATS: We want people to think about the numbers behind the news.  Stats essays for 2011.

StatLit Workshops: 2012

Keene State College

A 3-day faculty workshop organized by Mike Caulfield and Shari Bemis. Schield talks: 1 Statistical Literacy 6up; 2 Critical Thinking 6up; 3 Coincidence 6up; 5 Reading Tables 6up; 6 Reading Graphs  6up; 7 Statistical Literacy and Math 6up; 8 Confounding 6up.  May 15-17.

Lehman College CUNY

A one-day faculty workshop organized by Esther Wilder  (right) at Lehman College: City University of New York (Feb 24). Milo's class 6up  1up.   Math 6up.

Statistical Literacy @ Augsburg

Statistical Literacy: Coincidence

In the first fall Statistical Literacy class, students tried to find out who was the luckiest.  They each flipped a quarter 10 times and counted the length of their longest run.  When asked how they would distinguish skill from coincidence, they immediately replied: "Repetition".  They recognized that "the unlikely happens given enough tries" and "coincidences seldom repeat". Fall 2012.

Student writing is critical to any course that tries to promote critical thinking.  The Augsburg Statistical Literacy course used the new 2012 V9 version of Odyssey2Sense.  Students completed 24 challenges and then reflected on their experiences.  Fall 2012.

Math/Stat Education in the UK

Future of UK Statistics

The Future of Statistics [in the UK] (2012) by Roger Porkess. Published by the RSS,  London. (Summary - Statistics in our schools and colleges – summary 41).

Quantitative Skills in Social Science

Society Counts: Quantitative Skills in the Social Sciences (A Position Paper). Published by the British Academy. (2012).  London. (Summary: Society Counts Summary).

 UK Statistical Publications: 2012

Significance (RSS/ASA)

** A century and a half of moral statistics in the UK  By Cook and Wainer, June.  ** Robbing banks: Crime does pay – but not very much. By Reilly, Rickman and Witt,  June.  **  Are first-borns more likely to attend Harvard? By Millner and Calel, June.  **  A thing of beauty [Resolving Galton's Paradox] by O'Hagan, June.  ** The formula that killed Wall Street. Salmon, Feb.

Teaching Statistics: Issue 1

High-speed hypotheses! (p 10) Lesser.  ** What is a p-value (p 18) Humphrey. ** Sensitivity analysis in statistics teaching (p 38) Zhang and Govindaraju.  ** Difference between mathematics and statistics (p 44) Petocz and Sowey.   **  Creating, implementing and integrating a first-year statistics requirement (p 50)  Redington and Russell. 

Teaching Statistics: Issue 2

Lexical ambiguity: making a case against spread (p 55) Kaplan, Rogness and Fisher. **  Three questions to identify trustworthy statistics (p 75) Petocz and Sowey.  **  A result concerning runs when tossing a fair coin (p 79) Gabhe, Bhanu and Deshpande.  ** Going beyond the book: towards critical reading in statistics teaching (p 82) Andrew Gelman. 

Teaching Statistics: Issue 3

Business statistics at the top 50 US business programmes (p 92) Haskin and Krehbiel.  ** Teaching Statistics – from the beginning (p 104) Barnett and Holmes.   ** Using snakes to constrict statistics anxiety (p 111) Lesser.  ** A visual demonstration of the sample median (p 112) Mahmood.

Statistical Education Research Journal (SERJ)

Concept Retention

Retention of Statistical Concepts in a Preliminary Randomization-Based Introductory Statisitcs Curriculum. By Title (right), Topliff, Vanderstoep, Holmes, and Swanson.  Students in a traditional course lost 48% of their course gain within 4 months after the course.  Students in a randomization-based course lost only 6% of their gain.   SERJ May, 2012, p 21.

Attitudes, Concepts, Content

Students’ Perceptions of Statistics: An Exploration of Attitudes, Conceptualizations, and Content Knowledge of Statistics by Bond (left), Perkins, and Ramirez. Overall attitude (positive/negative) and reasons by discipline. SATS: During first 8 weeks, Interest dropped almost a full standard deviation, while Value and Effort dropped almost half a standard deviation.  SERJ: Nov, 2012 p. 6.

Statistics: Irrelevant to Career

Students’ Attitudes Toward Statistics Across the Disciplines: A Mixed-Methods Approach by Griffith (left), Adams, Gu, Hart, and Nichols-Whitehead.   Percentage of those students with negative attitudes toward statistics (37% of all students) as of 8th week of the course who cited "nonuse in future career": business (46%), criminal justice (80%) and psychology (86%). SERJ Nov 2012 p 45

Attitudes in Stats Ed.

Do Introductory Statistics Courses in the United States Improve Students’ Attitudes? Schau (right) & Emmioğlu. SATS: Value and Interest dropped a third of a SD; Effort dropped half.  "About 25% of the sections moved from the positive into the neutral range for Value"   "attitudes in about half of the sections dropped by at least ½ point from pretest to posttest" SERJ Nov2012, p. 86

CHANCE Magazine

Assessing Statistics [Topics] and Research Methodology in the MCAT Exam by Zhao, Dowd, and Searcy. "Respondents were asked to rate the importance of having knowledge about the topics and subtopics prior to entering medical school for success during medical school. "

Making the Old New Again by Çetinkaya-Rundel, Stangl, and Morgan.  "When searching for a good instructional data set it is hard to find one that is neither too simplistic nor too complex, and for this reason this paper and the accompanying data are an educational goldmine."

Statistics for Cigarette Sellers by Andrew Gelman.  "professional ethics demand that he [statisticians] give his best approximation to the truth."

Medicine, Statistics, and Education: The Inextricable Link by Brieger and  Hardin.  "the training of doctors should aim to improve statistical literacy. However, [this] has focused on introductory material, and we argue that there is a need for advanced statistical literacy in the health science"

Prediction Markets: How Accurate Are They? by Jonathan L. Wilson.

OTHER SOURCES

ASA Journal of Statistical Education

Statistical Education in 21st Century: a Review of Challenges, Teaching Innovations & Strategies for Reform by Tishkovskaya & Lancaster

Redesigning a Large Introductory Course to Incorporate the GAISE Guidelines by Woodard and McGowan.  [Great list of course outcomes!!]

Naive Analysis of Variance by Braun.

Team-Based Learning in a Statistical Literacy Class by St. Clair & Chihara.

A Case Study on Teaching the Topic “Experimental Unit” and How it is Presented in Advanced Placement Statistics Textbooks by Perrett.

Other Statistical Literacy web sites

Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science. Andrew Gelman‘s statistics blog with entries organised by categories.

Go Figure. Regular column by Michael Blastland about everyday statistics

STATS. Helps people to think about the numbers behind the news.

Understanding Uncertainty. David Spiegelhalter‘s project page.

Bad Science. Ben Goldacre's website

www.makingfaircomparisons.us.  A freely available textbook created for a General Education course on Quantitative Literacy.  By Michael Caulfield.

Other Journals:
A four-stage framework for assessing statistical literacy by Sharma, Sashi; Doyle, Phil; Shandil, Viney; Talakia'atu, Semisi.  Abstract: "The growing importance of statistics in today's information world and conceptions of statistical literacy are outlined and models for developing statistical literacy from research literature are considered. A four-stage framework for assessing statistical literacy from our design research is proposed. "

From Blogs in 2012

• Using statistics to lie, and why democracy needs statistical literacy by Jacob Alonso: co-webmaster of Seeing Complexity. "the future of our country is at stake when it comes to statistical literacy."  8/3/2012

• Hooray for the humble bar-graph by Charlotte Clark. 

• Statistical Literacy: Uses & Abuses of Numbers by Andrew Nelson 6up

QUOTES

STATISTICAL LITERACY

• Coincidence quotes from the past:  “Mr Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: 'Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action'.”  ― Ian Fleming, Goldfinger   Variations:  "Once is an Accident, twice is a Coincidence, and three times is a Pattern"; “Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is a habit” has been cited in print since at least 1921. “Once is nothing, twice is coincidence, three times is a moral certainty”  has been cited in print since 1923. "Once is a mistake, twice a coincidence, three times is a pattern"; "Once a misfortune, twice a coincidence, three times an issue"; "once is luck. twice is coincidence. three times is skill"; "Once is fluke. Twice is coincidence. Three times is a pattern"; "Once a misfortune, twice a coincidence, three times an issue."   Humor: TEACHER: What does "coincidence" mean? STUDENT: Funny, I was just going to ask you that. :)

NUMERACY

• "I focus on the most important form of innumeracy in everyday life, statistical innumeracy--that is, the inability to reason about uncertainties and risk." --Gerd Gigerenzer, in Calculated Risks: How to Know When Numbers Deceive You.

SOCIAL CAUSALITY

• "The biggest problem social scientists face is figuring out what causes what."  Macartan Humphreys, Professor, Columbia University

IMPORTANT ARTICLES

'Raise standards for preclinical cancer research', C. Glenn Begley and Lee Ellis (Nature 483, 531–533; 2012). Nature comment: "scientists at Amgen ... were able to reproduce findings in only 11% of 53 published papers."

Comment: Scientific Reproducibility: Begley's Six Rules by B. Booth Forbes

Are Medical Conferences Useful? And for Whom? John P. A. Ioannidis, MD, DSc JAMA. 2012;307(12):1257-1258. doi:10.1001/jama.2012.360.  Also 2

Simpson's Paradox and the Association Between Vitamin D Deficiency and Increased Heart Disease. Authors: Chan, William K.1,2 Redelmeier, Donald A.1,2,3,4 dar@ices.on.ca Source: American Journal of Cardiology. Jul2012, Vol. 110 Issue 1, p143-144. 2p.

Confounding variables in epidemiologic studies: Basics and Beyond by Farin Kamangar in the 2012 Archives of Iranian Medicine.  [Good overview/introduction. The distinction between quantitative and qualitative confounders does not involve the kind of data; it defines the power of the confounder. Qualitative confounders can change the direction; quantitative confounders can only change the magnitude. Ed.]

Confound those damned confounders. Authors: Sleigh, J. W.1 Source: Anaesthesia & Intensive Care. Jul2012, Vol. 40 Issue 4, p593-594.  "discusses a study which clarified the idea that redheads are resistant to general anesthesia, by Myles and colleagues, published within the issue. He commends the study authors for showing how confounding variable, such as gender, affects outcome. The author argues that the anesthesiology profession should always consider the principle of balanced skepticism."

What Is Hidden in My Data? Practical Strategies to Reveal Yule–Simpson’s Paradox and Strengthen Research Quality in Health Education Research. Authors: Smith, Matthew Lee1 Goltz, Heather H.2 Source: Health Promotion Practice. Sep2012, Vol. 13 Issue 5, p637-641. 5p

OTHER JOURNAL ARTICLES

Statistical Literacy and Statistics

The Health Literacy Skills Instrument: A 10-Item Short Form. By Bann, mcCormack, Berkman and Squiers. Journal of Health Communication. Nov2012 Supplement 3, Vol. 17, p191-202. DOI: 10.1080/10810730.2012.718042.

Supporting statistical literacy: What do culturally relevant/realistic tasks show us about the nature of pupil engagement with statistics?  By: Carvalho and Solomon. International Journal of Educational Research. Nov2012, Vol. 55, p57-65. 9p. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijer.2012.06.006.

Taking a Chance in the Classroom: Uncounted Votes: A Case Study in Analyzing Aggregated Data. By Stangl, Çetinkaya-Rundel and Lock-Morgan. Chance. Winter2012, Vol. 25 Issue 1, p18-23. 6p. DOI: 10.1080/09332480.2012.668460.

Statistical judgments are influenced by the implied likelihood that samples represent the same population. Detail Only Available By: Chesney, Dana; Obrecht, Natalie. Memory & Cognition. Apr2012, Vol. 40 Issue 3, p420-433. 14p. DOI: 10.3758/s13421-011-0155-3.

Predictive Analytics: Microsoft Excel (1st ed) by Conrad Carlberg

Quantitative Literacy and Reasoning

Measuring Risk Literacy: The Berlin Numeracy Test. Full Text Available.  By Cokely, Galesic, Schulz, Ghazal and Garcia-Retamero. Judgment & Decision Making. Feb2012, Vol. 7 Issue 1, p25-47. 23p.

Developing Quantitative Reasoning: Will Taking Traditional Math Courses Suffice? An Empirical Study. By Agustin, Agustin, Brunkow and Thomas. JGE: Journal of General Education. Oct2012, Vol. 61 Issue 4, p305-313.   "The authors state that taking one or more math courses does not develop quantitative reasoning. They note that quantitative reasoning course focuses on the practical application of mathematics while a traditional math course concentrate on manipulative skills and algorithms."

Quantitative Courses in a Liberal Education Program: A Case Study. By Wismath and Mackay. JGE: The Journal of General Education. Oct2012, Vol. 61 Issue 4, p314-322. 9p.

Book Review: Quantitative Reasoning and the Environment: Mathematical Modeling in Context. Mathematics Magazine. Oct2012, Vol. 85 Issue 4, p303-303. 2/5p. DOI: 10.4169/math.mag.85.4.302.

Learning Interdisciplinary Pedagogies. By Friedow, Blankenship, Green,  and Stroup. Pedagogy. Fall2012, Vol. 12 Issue 3, p405-424. 20p.

Numeracy

When and for whom do frequencies facilitate performance? On the role of numerical literacy. Detail Only Available By: Hill, W. Trey; Brase, Gary L. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. Dec2012, Vol. 65 Issue 12, p2343-2368. 26p. DOI: 10.1080/17470218.2012.687004

Annual numeracy tests to be introduced in 2013. Full Text Available Education Journal. 7/13/2012, Issue 134, p15-15. 1p.

Computer-based instruction for improving student nurses’ general numeracy: is it effective? Two randomised trials. Detail Only Available By: Ainsworth, Hannah; Gilchrist, Mollie; Grant, Celia; Hewitt, Catherine; Ford, Sue; Petrie, Moira; Torgerson, Carole J.; Torgerson, David J. Educational Studies (03055698). May2012, Vol. 38 Issue 2, p151-163. 13p. DOI: 10.1080/03055698.2011.598668.

Teaching Numeracy: 9 Critical Habits to Ignite Mathematical Thinking. Detail Only Available By: Reisch, Christopher. Mathematics Teacher. Sep2012, Vol. 106 Issue 2, p158-158. 1/3p.

news & numbers. Full Text Available Adults Learning. Spring2012, Vol. 23 Issue 3, p6-7.

The Theory-Based Influence of Map Features on Risk Beliefs: Self-Reports of What Is Seen and Understood for Maps Depicting an Environmental Health Hazard. Detail Only Available By: Severtson, Dolores J.; Vatovec, Christine. Journal of Health Communication. Aug2012, Vol. 17 Issue 7, p836-856. 21p. DOI: 10.1080/10810730.2011.650933.

Numeracy (continued)  and Innumeracy

Mathematics and Numeracy: Has anything changed? Are we any clearer? Are we on track? Full Text Available By: Hogan, John. Australian Mathematics Teacher. Oct2012, Vol. 68 Issue 4, p4-7.

Mathematics and numeracy--Is there a difference? Full Text Available Australian Mathematics Teacher. Oct2012, Vol. 68 Issue 4, p8-11.

Numeracy across the curriculum. Full Text Available. By: Goos, Dole and Geiger. Australian Mathematics Teacher. Mar2012, Vol. 68 Issue 1, p3-7.

Numeracy in Society and Environment. Full Text Available. By Cooper, Dole, Geiger and Goos. Australian Mathematics Teacher. Mar2012, Vol. 68 Issue 1, p16-20.

Numeracy in Health and Physical Education. Full Text Available By Peters, Geiger, Goos and Dole. Australian Mathematics Teacher. Mar2012, Vol. 68 Issue 1, p21-27.

Numeracy for What's in the News and Building an Expressway. Full Text Available By: Willis, Kym; Geiger, Vince; Goos, Merrilyn; Dole, Shelley. Australian Mathematics Teacher. Mar2012, Vol. 68 Issue 1, p9-15.

Beyond Comprehension: The Role of Numeracy in Judgments and Decisions. Detail Only Available By Peters, Ellen. Current Directions in Psychological Science (Sage Publications Inc.). Feb2012, Vol. 21 Issue 1, p31-35. 5p. DOI: 10.1177/0963721411429960.

What We Don't Know Can Hurt Our Patients: Physician Innumeracy and Overuse of Screening Tests. Full Text Available By: Moyer, Virginia A. Annals of Internal Medicine. 3/6/2012, Vol. 156 Issue 5, p392-393. 2p.

eCOTS 2012

eCOTS 2012

The first Electronic Conference on Teaching Statistics (e-COTS) was hosted by CAUSE May 14-18.    Agenda.  This first eCOTS had three themes: (1) Teaching Statistics: Debating some of the Big Ideas, (2) Statistics for the Modern Student and (3) Reaching Out and Building Relationships Beyond the College Statistics.

eCOTS 2012

The 2012 eCOTS was organized/chaired by Michelle Everson.   Keynote speakers and breakout sessions

Other noteworthy sessions included "Using advertisements to teach statistical literacy" with Rose Martinez-Dawson and Robert Horton, Clemson University

A Second Course is Needed:

Video: In one of the 14 invited "big idea" breakout sessions, Isaacson and Schield agreed that statistical educators should give strong support for a second course since data was increasingly common and statistical tools were more accessible.  But they disagreed on what that course should be.  Isaacson argued for statistical literacy; Schield argued for an updated follow-on course. Abstract

Big Data: Coincidence

Milo Schield (Augsburg) presented a 5 minute webinar:
Big Data Generates Beguiling Coincidences.
Points:  "Coincidence" is much more likely than expected!!! Three explanations: (1) May involve an ambiguity (ex-ante vs. ex-post);  (2) May involve Law of Very-Large Numbers.   (3) May be a sign of causation.  
Abstract    6up-slides      video (5min, 8mb)

ASA: Statistical Literacy Session

Statistical Literacy #15

Milo Schield organized and chaired the 15th topic-contributed session on Statistical Literacy with 50-60 attendees in San Diego, CA.    The rankings shown are from attendee evaluations of the 45 papers presented in sessions sponsored by Statistical Education Section. 
 

Kathy Hall  presented "Is Statistical Literacy at Risk with Common Core Standards?"  Abstract 6up.   

Clinical Numeracy Ranked #1/45

Tanner Caverly presented Clinical Numeracy - Getting the Gist of Health Risks. Abstract 6up Talk   "...preliminary work on the development of the Critical Risk Interpretation Test which ... evaluates ... a clinician’s risk gist. Finally, we discuss how the conceptual framework ... allows us to test hypotheses regarding the effect of risk gist on risk communication tasks and medical decision making."

Causal Heterogeneity  Ranked #9/45

Milo Schield (Augsburg College) presented How Causal Heterogeneity Influences Statistical Significance in Clinical Trials in a regular contributed session. Using Weisberg's 2011 approach, Schield showed how a lack of statistical significance could be entirely due to causal heterogeneity  in a clinical trial where the treatment is sufficient to produce the desired effect in some of the subjects.  6up 

Statistical Survival Skills Ranked #4/45

Marc Isaacson (Augsburg College) presented Lost: Assessing Student Basic Survival Skills in the Statistical Wilderness Using Real Data. "this activity probes student understanding" of "summary statistics, tables and graphs" as presented in the US. Wildlife Survey.  Most (76%) clearly demonstrated the "confusion of the inverse".  6up

Numeracy Infusion

Ester Wilder (Lehman) presented Teaching Quantitative Reasoning Skills: A Numeracy Infusion Course for Higher Education (NICHE).  Goal: "to reduce the QR anxieties and improve the QR competencies of participating faculty" by offering "a predominantly online Numeracy Infusion Course for Higher Education (NICHE) designed to train faculty in a wide range of disciplines."   6up. 

Social Statistics: The stepchild

How Economic and Social Statistics became the Stepchildren of the Profession by Othmar Winkler.  "how probabilistic thinking began to dominate leading to the mistaken identification of all statistics with ‘mathematical statistics’ with the consequence that the mathematical formulas and models have ... lead to a stagnation of Socio-economic statistics proper...."

ASA JSM

Teaching Confounding

Teaching and Learning Confounding in the Health Sciences by Enders (left), Kroehl, McGready and Carter. "Case vignettes are a good initial approach to teaching confounding through class discussion in a problem-based learning approach.  We believe it is possible to use brief problem-based learning exercises to add considerable depth to students’ understanding of confounding."

Pollution-Mortality

A Closer Look at Air Pollution-Mortality Relationships for California Members of the American Cancer Society Cohort by Frederick W. Lipfert (Consultant) and S. Stanley Young (NISS, left).  "we find no relationship between PM 2.5 exposures ... and all-cause mortality in California from 1982-2000."   See also Young's slides on improving observational study results.

New Test for Randomness

A New Test For Randomness with Application to Stock Market Index Data by Alicia Strandberg (right) and Boris Iglewicz (Temple U.). "This nonparametric test is designed to detect deviations of neighboring observations from randomness, especially when the dataset consists of time series observations. The proposed test is especially effective for larger dataset."

Developing a Test of Normality in the Classroom by Robert W. Jernigan (American University). Abstract.  "he importance of looking at the data, an analyst’s intuition and experience in modeling, sampling distributions, hypothesis testing, power, QQ plots, and correlation are all reviewed and reinforced."   See also his collection of pictures that illustrate statistical concepts.

Interesting talks (abstract only; no paper)

Roles of Language in Teaching Statistics: Research and Practice  544. Fisher, Kaplan and Wagler (Lesser)

Causation in Statistics: A Gentle Introduction by Judea Pearl Abstract

Stochastic Counterfactuals, Sufficient Causes, and Quantum Mechanics by James Robins and Tyler VanderWeele.  Abstract

Model deconstruction and Hill causality by William Heavlin  Abstract.

Making instrumental variables look more like experimental design by Baiocchi and Small.   Abstract

Two Intent-to-Treat Principles by Thomas Permutt (FDA). Abstract

Is Deming's Red Bead Experiment Misleading? By Goldsmith.  Abstract

Application of the Shewhart Philosophy and Methodology to Create Insights from Analytics by Chris H. Holloman, Thomas A. Bishop and Wes Hunt abstract

NEW BOOKS: SCIENCE AND STATISTICS

by Samantha Kleinberg (Nov 11, 2012) "Causality is a key part of many fields and facets of life..."   "presents a new approach to inference (finding relationships from a set of data) and explanation (assessing why a particular event occurred), addressing both the timing and complexity of relationships. The practical use of the method developed is illustrated through theoretical and experimental" cases.

by Beebee, Hitchcock and Menzies.   "Overview as well as the history of the causation debate". "The chapters provide surveys of contemporary debates, while often also advancing novel and controversial claims; and each includes a comprehensive bibliography and suggestions for further reading. "the most comprehensive source of information about causation currently available".

NEW EDITIONS

Statistics Unplugged (4th ed)

Sally Caldwell: "helps you understand the relevance of statistics to your own life. Interesting examples ... allow you to see what is really going on with the numbers instead of being overwhelmed by the numbers themselves.." Review: " best job of introducing introductory statistical concepts." Gives "foundation upon which to build your statistical repertoire."

Epidemiology: Introduction (2nd)

Epidemiology: An Introduction (2nd ed) by Kenneth J. Rothman.  "The text focuses on concepts, not on mathematics, and discusses statistical techniques in the context of the real problems they can solve. This text bridges the gap between what is taught in an introductory statistics text and what you need to be an effective researcher and analyst." -- STATA "

Designing Tables and Graphs (2nd)

Quantitative Reasoning: Tools for Today's Informed Citizen [2nd ed] by Alicia Sevilla and Kay Somers.    "builds upon the 1st issue with more ways to help readers handle complex, real-life, every-day situations such as understanding credit card offers, balancing checkbooks, and computing restaurant tips. more ways for connecting mathematics with applications ...."

Mathematical Thinking & QR (5)

Mathematical Thinking and Quantitative Reasoning (5th ed, loose leaf) by Linda Sons, Peter J. Nicholls and Stephen Joseph.   [See StatLit 2008/2009??? for details on 2008 edition.] 

Math in Society (2nd ed)

A survey of mathematics for the liberal arts major (2nd ed) by David Lippman.  Chapters: Problem Solving, Voting Theory, Weighted Voting, Apportionment, Fair Division, Graph Theory, Scheduling, Growth Models, Finance, Statistics, Describing Data, Probability, Sets, Historical Counting Systems, Fractals and Cryptography. Open text version.

• 2012 ASA President's Message:  Statistical Literacy and the 2013 International Year of Statistics.  Copy.  "Statistical literacy can no longer be viewed as a skill needed by a select few; it is essential knowledge required by all that must be developed beginning at an early age and built on throughout one’s school years."
• 2012 Nov 15:  Educators' Statistical Literacy: Graduate Education University of Melbourne.  Principals and teachers are now expected to make data driven decisions regarding planning and practice. This project is examining principals’ and teachers’ attitudes to, and perceptions of, statistical reports as well as their skills in interpreting such quantitative information. Surveys and focus groups have been used to collect data from 900 respondents.  Researchers include Ian Gordon and Robyn Pierce (U. Melbourne), and Jane Watson and Helen Chick (U. Tasmania).  PDF.

• 2012 Nov 11:  Scoop.It: Mathematical and Statistical Literacy. Curated by Emily C. Shahan.  “Artifacts of mathematical/statistical work in the world to bring into a mathematics classroom.” Emily Shahan, MEC Consultant and mathematics teacher. Emily taught high school, middle school, and upper elementary students prior to returning to graduate school in teacher education at Stanford to pursue a degree in mathematics education. Currently a Lecturer at Vanderbilt University, she studies the teaching and learning of introductory algebra and teaches pre-service elementary and secondary math teachers. Vanderbilt 2008: Emily Shahan, assistant professor of the practice of mathematics education (M.A., 2001, Stanford University; B.A., 1995, Williams College)

• 2012 Nov 10: Nate Silver: Why I Started FiveThirtyEight.  Checkout his new book, The Signal and the Noise. Contrasts Bayesian ideology with Frequentists approaches to forecasting.

• 2012 Nov 1: Causality in Statistics Education Prize established by the ASA and funded by Judea Pearl.  Applications due by Feb 28. See Ron Wassestein's interview of Judea Pearl.  See Pearl's review of Econometric textbooks.

• 2012 Oct 22:  Statistical Literacy for Journalists: A Tribute to Victor Cohn.  Augsburg College 6-8 PM. Sponsored by the Twin Cities Chapter of the American Statistical Association and the Media Committee of the International Statistical Literacy Project.   Speakers: Milo Schield (Augsburg College), Lewis Copes (Minneapolis Star and Tribune, Retired) and Deborah Cohn Runkle (Sr. Program Associate, AAAS).

• 2012 Oct 18: Telegraph 'Statistical illiteracy' leaves citizens at risk of being duped by politicians and businessmen, warns British Academy.  Highlighting a strong of studies in which employers “lament” modern graduates’ lack of numeracy, it goes on to warn of implications for everyday life. “Without statistical understanding citizens, voters and consumers cannot play a full part,” it insists. “To call politicians, media and business to account, we need the skills to know when spurious arguments are being advanced.”  PDF.

• 2012 Oct 16:  British Academy releases a position statement: "Society Counts: Quantitative Skills in the Social Sciences and Humanities".   "The British Academy is deeply concerned that the UK is weak in quantitative skills, in particular but not exclusively in the social sciences and humanities. This deficit has serious implications for the future of the UK’s status as a world leader in research and higher education, for the employability of our graduates, and for the competitiveness of the UK’s economy."  "With moves towards more open access to large scale databases and the increase in data generated by a digital society – all combined with our increasing data-processing power – more and more debate is likely to turn on statistical arguments. Providing citizens with the means to understand, analyse and criticise data becomes ever more integral to the functioning of a democracy."

• 2012 Oct 7: APA Guidelines V 2.0 Statistics.  Statistical Sage blog. Outcomes that are related to statistics:  1.2e Students will be able to interpret simple graphs and statistical findings. (p 25)  1.2E Students will be able to describe the importance of specific statistical findings and complex graphs in the context of its level of statistical significance. (p 25)  1.4f Students will be able to select, apply, and interpret appropriate descriptive statistics to derive valid conclusions regarding research outcomes. (p 27) 1.4F Students will be able to select, apply and interpret appropriate inferential statistics to derive valid conclusions regarding research outcomes. (p 27) 3.1f Students will be able to interpret quantitative data displayed in statistics, graphs, and tables, including statistical symbols in research reports. (p 41)  3.1F Students will be able to construct appropriate display of quantitative data in statistics, graphs, and tables.
  In areas that are very closely related to applied statistics, and I’m suspecting that most of you cover in your applied statistics classes we have the following outcomes.
  1.4 a Students will be able to describe various research methods used by psychologist including their respective advantages and disadvantages. (p 27) 1.4A Students will be able to evaluate the effectiveness of quantitative and qualitative research methods in addressing relevant research questions. (p 27)  1.4b Students will be able to discuss the value of experimental designs (i.e., controlled comparisons) in justifying cause-effect relationships. (p 27)  1.4B Students will be able to limit cause-effect claims to research strategies that appropriately rule out alternative explanations. (p 27)  1.4e Students will be able to explain why conclusions in psychological projects must be both reliable and valid. (p 27)   1.4E Students will be able to design and adopt high quality measurement strategies that enhance reliability and validity. (p 27)

• 2012 Oct 3:  Can we afford Statistical Literacy?  RSS Workshop Plymouth Univ.  David Walker (Chair ESRC Methods and Infrastructure Committee) and John Pullinger (Chair of the UK Data Forum President-Elect of the Royal Statistical Society).  "The getstats Campaign presentation will draw on evidence about public misunderstanding of frequency, risk and probability and will chart its potential cost in the consumption of collective goods such as health and education and in commercial markets. It will then turn to model the benefits of higher levels of statistical literacy on productivity and resource allocation. The talk will outline the ambitions of the Royal Statistical Society getstats Campaign, noting challenges to and opportunities for professional statisticians in widening public understanding and the applications of statistical techniques."

• 2012 Sept:  Statistical literacy course (SCIL 07001) Univ of Edinburgh.  Organized by Dr. John Macinnes (Sociology).  Description   Details  

• 2012 Aug 31: How I Created a Trapezoidal Display of Simpson's Paradox by Arjun Tan, Prof Emeritus at Alabama A&M Univ. The trapezoidal display of Simpson's paradox has been independently created at least three times. Lesser (2001) notes Tan (1986).  Wainer and Brown (2004) note Jeon, Chung and Bae (1987) and Baker and Kramer (2001).

• 2012 Aug 14:  Made it! An uncanny number of psychology findings manage to scrape into statistical significance by E. J. Masicampo at Wake Forest University, USA, and David Lalande at Université du Québec à Chicoutimi.   "an unusually large number of psychology findings are reported as "just significant" in statistical terms. The pattern of results could be indicative of dubious research practices, in which researchers nudge their results towards significance, for example by excluding troublesome outliers or adding new participants. Or it could reflect a selective publication bias in the discipline - an obsession with reporting results that have the magic stamp of statistical significance. Most likely it reflects a combination of both these influences."

• 2012 Aug 3: Understanding risk statistics about breast cancer screening by Fiona Fidler and Bonnie Wintle (Univ. Melbourne).  Explains why five-year survival rates are misleading in terms of lead-time bias and over-diagnosis bias.  "Improved statistical literacy about breast cancer screening is vital because it means that people can make informed decisions about screening and seek a second opinion if a test comes back positive."

• 2012 July 11:  Steve Ziliak comments on Soyer-Hogarth's Visualizing Economic Uncertainty. "expert econometricians themselves—our best number crunchers—make better predictions when only graphical information—such as a scatter plot and theoretical linear regression line—is provided to them. Give them t-statistics and fits of R-squared for the same data and regression model and their forecasting ability declines. Give them only t-statistics and fits of R-squared and predictions fall from bad to worse."

• 2012 July 5:  On students’ conceptions of arithmetic average: the case of inference from a fixed total. By Dov Zazkis at San Diego State University in the International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science & Technology.  Abstract: There is more to understanding the concept of mean than simply knowing and applying the add-them-up and divide algorithm. In the following, we discuss a component of understanding the mean – inference from a fixed total – that has been largely ignored by researchers studying students understanding of mean. We add this component to the list of types of reasoning needed to understand mean and discuss student responses to tasks designed to elicit this component of reasoning. These responses reveal that inference from a fixed total reasoning is rare even in advanced high school students. DOI:10.1080/0020739X.2012.703338.

• 2012 June 22:  Data Literacy for Journalists.  "data literacy is the ability to consume for knowledge, produce coherently and think critically about data." References the Data Journalism Handbook (See below).

• 2012 June 20:  Saint Joseph's College Looks to Improve Quantitative Literacy with $10K Grant.  The focus of the faculty development workshop sponsored by this grant is to help faculty create hands-on activities with data acquisition equipment that will enhance students' quantitative thinking."  In 2011, St. Joseph received a $10K grant from Vernier for purchase of Vernier data-collection technology.  Sept 23, 2011

• 2012 June 18:  Klass publishes Second Edition of "Just Plain Data Analysis."  "Gary Klass, associate professor of politics and government, has recently published the second edition of his book, Just Plain Data Analysis. The book is designed to teach statistical literacy skills that students can use to evaluate and construct arguments about public affairs issues that are grounded in numerical evidence. The book also mentions skills that are often not taught in introductory social science research methods courses and that are often covered sketchily in the research methods textbooks: where to find commonly used measures of political and social conditions; how to assess the reliability and validity of specific indicators; how to present data efficiently in charts and tables; how to avoid common misinterpretations and misrepresentations of data; and how to evaluate causal arguments based on numerical data.   This new edition has a chapter on statistical fallacies and many updates throughout. It also teaches students to find, interpret, and present information in a clearer and more practical way."  Amazon.  "This second edition has four new new chapters that are a must-read for anyone interested in where statistics come from and how they are formed by our choices."  Milo Schield. 

• 2012 May 14: NSF Request for ideas about a Mathematics Education Initiative.  "This funding [$60 M] will create a dual-agency initiative on mathematics education that will combine the strengths of NSF and ED to stimulate needed research and development in mathematics education and the use of successful practices and innovations at scale. This initiative will support researchers, practitioners, and institutions with the greatest potential for transformational impact, and provide opportunities for state, local and institutional decision-makers to infuse proven practices into mathematics education. The goal is to have a lasting impact on the learning and teaching of mathematics."   Deadline: July 1, 2012.  "Explain the priority issue, challenge, or opportunity; provide a brief rationale for its importance; and comment on the implications it has for the teaching and learning of mathematics at the K-16 level. Provide the evidence or research base that supports the priority issue, challenge, or opportunity you have identified, including references, if appropriate."

• 2012 May 4:  Math-QL Academic Position at Bay Path College in Longmeadow, MA. "The College is very eager to refocus our mathematics and statistics courses on quantitative literacy and numeracy with a special effort to building these skills into numerous components of our entire curriculum. We are especially interested in an individual – regardless of academic preparation – who can help to lead this effort."

• 2012 April 26:  Coincidences: What are the chances of them happening?  By David Spiegelhalter.  BBC News.  PDF

• 2012 April 24:  Data and Statistical Literacy. An interactive web-based tutorial that promotes the development of critical thinking and [information] evaluative skills.   Posted by Susan Metcalf (Western Carolina University) on MERLOT: Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching.

• 2012 April:  "Welcome to Statistical Literacy, the science of understanding".   This site is about statistical literacy in Farsi. It is trying to help society to understand statistics and its applications. Try it and enjoy...   Site owner: Afshin Ashofteh ().  "Statistical literacy is a term used to describe an individual's or group's ability to understand statistics.  Statistical literacy is necessary for citizens to understand material presented in publications such as newspapers, television and the internet.  Numeracy is a prerequisite to being statistically literate.  Being statistical literate is sometimes taken to include having both the ability to critically evaluate statistical material and to appreciate the relevance of statistically-based approaches to all aspects of life in general."   "Upper limit minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Lower limit minds discuss people."

• 2012 Apr 5: Education, statistics and the big data future by Tom King (RSS News) PDF. 

• 2012 Apr 2: Statways: New statistics course aims to accelerate college students’ path to success.  EdSource Extra

• 2012 Mar 27:  Obama administration to push big data agenda  by Barb Darrow (blog).  "Here are three things the feds could do right off the bat to promote better use of big data:(1) put the government’s own data sets into open formats, (2) push states to include a data or statistical literacy component in their education plans, and (3) establish ways to continuously collect data on prescribed topics as opposed to relying on temporary snapshots"

• 2012 March: Data Journalism Handbook 1.0 beta.  Edited by Jonathan Gray, Liliana Bounegru and Lucy Chambers. 

• 2012 Mar 23:  Statistical Literacy blog by Armin Grossenbacher.  Good overview of data literacy, visualization and communication.

• 2012 Mar 22:  Statistical literacy in film studies I by Nick Redfern (blog)   Statistical literacy in film studies II

• 2012 Mar 22:  RSSCSE Pathways to Teaching Statistics.  Information

• 2012 Mar 16:  New book: Student Writing in the Quantitative Disciplines: A Guide for College Faculty by Patrick Bahls.

• 2012 Feb 21:  Math Matters:  America's Innumeracy by Walter Williams.

• 2012 Feb 8: Millions, Billions, Zillions: Why (In)numeracy Matters by Brian Kernighan (Berkman Fellow & Department of Computer Science, Princeton University) at Harvard Univ. PDF

• 2012 Feb 6: Presentation Skills: Bring Statistics to Life -- by Carmine Gallo in Forbes. "Statistics often don’t mean much if left on their own. In fact, the bigger the number, the more important it is to put into context. Have fun with it. Brainstorm ways to add context around the statistic and bring it to life with interesting, compelling PowerPoint visuals. It’s estimated that on any given day 30 million PowerPoint presentations are delivered. That’s the equivalent of 20,000 presentations started every minute. Most of those presentations are bland, confusing, and convoluted, especially if they are full of statistics, charts and graphs. Don’t add to the confusion. By bringing statistics to life, your audience will be more likely to recall the information later and thoroughly enjoy your presentation."

• 2012 Feb 1:  RSS GetStats: Proposes 12 ‘number hygiene’ rules for journalists.  Two-page text-only copy   Blog

• 2012 Feb:  Project-SET (Statistics Education for Teachers) Opens new NSF-funded website for those interested in teacher preparation.

• 2012 Jan 19 RSS Report: The Future of Statistics in our Schools and Colleges by Roger Porkness.  "Policy on mathematics post-16 should ensure that a large majority of young people continue with some form of mathematics post-16." See Table 11: Statistics topics in the A level Mathematics [No mention of confounding] "The ideas of correlation and causation, often linked together, are widely used outside mathematics. More could be done within mathematics to emphasise the danger of assuming that correlation implies causation." "It is very likely that new post-16 courses will soon be developed... <snip> These courses will be designed for those who currently do no mathematics or statistics beyond GCSE. Since many such students are currently very glad to have given up all forms of mathematics, the new courses will only be successful if they succeed in engaging the interest and enthusiasm of this clientele. They will require careful design and the statistical content, and the way that it is presented, will be critical in this." "Another ever-present danger is that those who do not understand the value of statistics exert political pressure for a reduction in the extent to which it is taught: 'More algebra and less data handling' is a beguiling message."

• 2012 Jan 13  UTSA QLP Program Guidelines for Q-Course Grant Submission Proposals  (Due Jan 13, 2012).  Q-Course Proposal Worksheet.  Quantitative Literacy Course (Q-course) Development Grants: Invitation to faculty (11/7/2011).   All based on the 8 "EVALUATE" learning outcomes.

• 2012 Jan 3:  The Big Mistake: Teaching stat as though it were math by Douglas Andrews, ASA.  "The foundation of stat is in empirical science and in learning from observed data, not in math."

Amazon Best Selling Books in Statistics

Popularity: Advanced Search: Subject = Science: Keyword = Statistics. Published during 2012.  Excludes new editions, Kindle editions and non-books: game cards, calendars, Cliff notes, coloring books, GRE workbooks.
#1 The Theory That Would Not Die: [Bayes' Rule] by Sharon B. McGrayne
#2 The Upside of Irrationality: Benefits of Defying Logic by Dan Ariely
#3 Scale Development: Theory and Applications by Robert F. DeVellis
#4 Algorithmic Puzzles by Anany Levitin and Maria Levitin
#5 Statistical Analysis: Microsoft Excel 2010 [Paperback] Conrad Carlberg
#6 Statistics book Your Professor Doesn't Want You to Have S. Deviant
#7 Elementary Decision Theory by Herman Chernoff and Lincoln E. Moses
#8 Statistics for Spatio-Temporal Data  by Noel Cressie and C.K. Wikle
#9 Precision: Statistical-Mathematic Methods in Horse Racing. CX Wong
10 Statistical Abstract of the US, 2011-2012: by U.S. Dept Commerce
11 Futurecast: What Today's Trends Mean for Tomorrow's World. G Barna
12 Economic Indicators For Dummies by Michael Griffis
13 Understanding The New Statistics: Effect Sizes, etc. Geoff Cumming
14 Social Network Analysis: History, Theory and Methodology by C. Prell
15 Bayesian Population Analysis w WinBUGS by Marc Kery and M. Schaub
16 Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences by Gregory J. Privitera
17 Thinking Statistically by Uri Bram
18 Structural Equation Modeling with Mplus by Barbara M. Byrne
19 Uneducated Guesses: Uncover Misguided Education Policies. H Wainer
20 Econometrics by Example by Damodar N. Gujarati

Most Popular books: Professional-Statistics

Popularity as of 12/2011: Advanced Search: Science-Math, Keyword = Statistics.
Note: Ignores Kindle-only books, Kindle editions, free Creative Commmons (CK-12) books and required "books" (c.f., My MathLab - Student Access).
#1 Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
#2 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-IV-TR. APA
#3 Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences  by T Moskowitz and J. Wertheim
#4 The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. Nassim Taleb
#5 Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
#6 The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 2nd ed. by Tufte. 
#7 Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis
#8 Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative & Mixed Methods, Creswell
#9 Fifty Challenging Problems in Probability with Solutions by F. Mosteller
10 Envisioning Information by Edward R. Tufte.
11 The Visual Miscellaneum: Most Consequential Trivia by D McCandless
12 Understanding a Wager by Ramy Tadros
13 Math Jokes 4 Mathy Folks by G. Patrick Vennebush
14 How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff and Irving Geis
15 Cartoon Guide to Statistics by Larry Gonick, Woollcott Smith. 
16 A Monetary History of the US, 1867-1960 by Friedman and Schwartz
17 Capitalism Hits the Fan: by Richard D. Wolff
18 Elementary Statistics (11th Edition) by Mario F. Triola
19 The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time by J. Sachs
20 Discovering Statistics Using SPSS by Andy Field.

Amazon Best Selling Books in Statistics and Math

Most Popular Science-Math Books: Statistics

12/2011 Popularity: Adv. Search: Science-Math, Keyword = Statistics.
Note: Ignores Kindle-only books, Kindle editions, free Creative Commons (CK-12) books and required "books" (c.f., My MathLab - Student Access).
#1 Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
#2 The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 2nd ed. by Tufte. 
#3 Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative & Mixed Methods Creswell
#4 Fifty Challenging Problems in Probability with Solutions by F. Mosteller
#5 Envisioning Information by Edward R. Tufte.
#6 How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff and Irving Geis. 
#7 Cartoon Guide to Statistics by Larry Gonick, Woollcott Smith. 
#8 The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives.  L. Mlodinow
#9 Discovering Statistics Using SPSS by Andy Field.
10. Barron's AP Statistics by Martin Sternstein
11. The Theory That Would Not Die: [Bayes' Rule] by S. McGrayne
12. What is a p-value anyway? 34 Stories ...  by Andrew Vickers
13. How to Measure Anything: Valuing Intangibles in Business, Hubbard
14. Probabilistic Graphical Models: Principles/Techniques. Koller+Friedman
15. Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance by Nassim Taleb. 
16. Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk by Peter L. Bernstein
17. Visual Explanations: Images-Quantities, Evidence-Narrative. E Tufte
18. The Basic Practice of Statistics: w/Student CD by David S. Moore
19. Epidemiology: by Leon Gordis
20. Numbers Rule Your World: The Hidden Influence ... by Kaiser Fung

Amazon bestsellers (12/2012) in Books>Science & Math> Mathematics.  Sorted by "New & Popular": Excludes Kindle editions and non-books: game cards, calendars, Cliff notes, coloring books, GRE/SAT/AP workbooks, logic puzzles., Mathlab access, 2012
#1 The Signal and the Noise: Why Most Predictions Fail ...by Nate Silver
#2 Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
#3 The Joy of x: A Guided Tour of Math, ... by Steven H. Strogatz
#4 Automate This: How Algorithms Came to Rule Our World by C. Steiner
#5 The Success Equation: Untangling Skill and Luck by M. Mauboussin
#5.The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, 2nd ed.,  by Tufte
#6a. Secrets of Mental Math: Mathemagician's Guide, Benjamin & Shermer **********************
#6 The Success Equation: Untangling Skill and Luck ... by M Mauboussin
#7 Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative & Mixed Methods, Creswell
#8 Number Talks: Helping Children Build Mental Math ... K-5 by S. Parrish
#9 The Fractalist: Memoir of a Scientific Maverick by Benoit Mandelbrot
10 ##
11 Math Doesn't Suck: How to Survive Middle School Math .. by McKellar
12 Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by D. R. Hofstadter
13 Secrets of Mental Math: Mathemagician's Guide... Benjamin & Shermer
14 Discovering Statistics Using SPSS by Andy Field
15 How to Measure Anything: ... the Value of Intangibles.. by Hubbard
16 Envisioning Information by Edward R. Tufte.
17 The Art of R Programming: ...Statistical Software Design by Matloff
18 The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie ... by Dan Ariely
19 Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbott
20 Show Me the Numbers: Designing Tables and Graphs ... by S Few

2011 AMAZON RANK: STATISTICS TEXTBOOKS##

Amazon.com US sales ranks in books as of Dec 10, 2011.  Sales-ranks:  100 sales/wk=4,000th; 60 /wk=10,000; 10/wk=100K; 1/wk=400K.

These rankings fluctuate daily and don't include sales made directly by publishers to bookstores.  Rankings via www.salesrankexpress.com. 

Rank   Author: Title  

7,778  Gonick and Smith: Cartoon Guide to Statistics  1st

9,456  Triola: Elementary Statistics 11th

92,421  Utts: Seeing Through Statistics (3rd)  NovelRank

944,741  Aufmann and Lockwood: Mathematical Thinking and QR (1st)

6,838,550  Burkhart: Quantitative and Qualitative Reasoning Skills

Top 25 StatLit Papers by Google Scholar

Google Scholar (Dec., 2012).  Search on "Statistical Literacy," all areas, exclude patents, summaries only.

TOP DOWNLOADS @ STATLIT.ORG

Papers downloaded from www.StatLit.org in 2012.

Total downloads: (246,00 in 2012; 198,000 in 2011; 207,000 in 2010; 184,000 in 2009; 106,000 in 2008).  Counts in parenthesis are  (2012; 2011; 2010; 2009; 2008).   As of 2012, the StatLit website hosts 963 pdfs: 284 of slides, 679 of papers.

1. Percentage Graphs in USA Today. Milo Schield 2006 ASA (17,819; 19,114; 11,179; 13,253; 14,247; 8,809) Inception-to-date: 84,896.

2. Presenting Confounding Graphically Using Standardization (4,646; 1289; 2084; 1985; 1616). Milo Schield, 2006 STATS magazine

3. Interpreting the substantive significance of multivariate regression coefficients. Jane Miller 2008 ASA (3,118; 1625[11]; 2094; 1412)

4. Statistical Literacy: A New Mission for Data Producers.  Milo Schield 2011 SJIAOS (2,815 [10]; 1723)

5. Coincidence in Runs and Clusters. Milo Schield 2012 MAA (2,466[9])  [New in 2012]

6. Exploring Simpson's Paradox. Larry Lesser (Univ. Texas, El Paso) NCTM 2001 (1,686[9]; 1143[9]; 2043[11]; 2844; 913)

7. Statistics for Political Science Majors. Gary Klass 2004 ASA (1,416[10]; 1389[10]; 596[6]; 765; 215)

8. Ambiguity Intolerance: An Impediment to Inferential Reasoning?  Robert Carver 2006 ASA (1,370 [11]; 1220; 624[5]; 797)

9. Developing statistical literacy with students and teachers in the secondary mathematics classroom.  Masters Thesis. Doyle (1,136[4]; 597[5]; 1811[9])

10. Importance and Measurement of Pre-Service Teachers' Efficacy to Teach Statistics... 2009 ASA Harrell et al. (1,075[8]; 1753[11]; 2506)

11. The Reliability of Measuring Instruments. Thomas R. Knapp 2009. (1,027[7]) [Newly hosted in 2012]

12. Teaching Statistical Literacy as Quantitative Rhetoric. ASA 2010 John Schmit 6up (986[8]; 1187[9]; 279[2])

Number of months tracked in brackets [#] if less than 12. 

13. The Cult of Statistical Significance by Stephen Ziliak and Deirdre McCloskey  2009 ASA 6up 4up (890[8]; 3160 3972; 999)

14. Interpreting the Cumulative Frequency Distribution of Socio-Economic Data. Othmar Winkler   2009 ASA [822[7], )

15. Social Mathematics in US Civics Curriculum. James Mauch dissertation 2005 (801[4]; 792[5]; 858[7]; 442; 470)

16. Interpreting Socio-Economic Data Othmar Winkler 2011 ISI (793[5])

17. Matrixx Brief by McCloskey and Ziliak 2009 (767[3])

18. Three Paradoxes. Howard Wainer and Lisa Brown, Nat. Board of Med. Examiners. Draft American Statistician 2004 (716[6]; 913[9]; 1084[10]; 315; 750)

19. Percentages by Thomas R. Knapp  2009  (605[4]) [New in 2012]

20. Integrating Quantitative and Financial Literacy. Joseph Ganem 2011 ASA (601[4])

21. Statistical Literacy: Thinking Critically About Statistics. Milo Schield APDU 1999  (568[5])

22. Some Difficulties Learning Histograms. Carl Lee & Maria Meletiou-Mavrotheris ASA 2003 (551[4]; 1156[8]; 1792; 991; 1179)

23. Statistical Literacy: An Online Course at Capella University. Marc Isaacson (Augsburg College) 2005 ASA (512 [5], ???, 1054[10]; 902; 1202)

24. Teaching Statistical Literacy using Odyssey2Sense (TM): A Unique Web-Forum by Milo Schield  2011 MAA. 6up Poster (496[3]; 558[4])

25. It May Be a Great Day for Baseball, but Is It a Great Day for a Knuckleball? Robert H. Carver 2011 ASA (472[3])  6up

26. Statistical Literacy Curriculum Design, 2004 Milo Schield IASE (457[2]

Excludes papers having fewer than 450 downloads. Excludes non-articles such as Amazon lists, PowerPoint slides, reference documents (UTSQ-QEP. Bracey principles, QR textbooks), pdf scans (1993 Weinberg) and non-statistical articles (Freeminds).

TOP PAGES VIEWED@STATLIT.ORG

1. Index (29,554; 28,157, 23,159; 15,729; 10,423):  Home

2. Standardizing (6,633; 5,176; 3,265; 2,434; 1,718): Excel displays.

3. Joel Best (4,617; 5,036; 4,794; 3,481; 3,118): Author

4. Howard Wainer (4,296; 3,893; 2,778; 2,127; 1,966): Author.

5. Adult Numeracy (4,070; 4,998, 5,007; 2,467; 1,987)

6. StatLit Papers (3,073; 4,203; 3,131; 2,837; 2,444)

7. StatLit News 2011 (3,023)

8. StatLit News 2009 (2,797; 3,228; 4,869)

9. StatLit News 2008 (2,698; 2,975; 3,333; 2,634)

10. StatLit News 2010 (2,693; 2,963)

11. Gerd Gigerenzer (2,283; 2,567; 1,993*; 1,415; 1,503): Author

12. Q/L Textbooks (2,233; 3,159; 2,741; 2,484; 2,387)

13. StatLit News 2007 (1,940; 2,127; 2,552; 1,498; 1,928)

14. Gerald Bracey (1,923; 2,374; 2,655; 2,669; 2,035): Author

15. Q/L Activities (1,886; 2,106; 1,725*; 1,278; 1,378).

16. Q/L Books (1,884; 2,305; 1,418; 1,459):  Excluding textbooks

17. StatLit News 2012 (1,297[7])  New in 2012

18. StatLit News 2004 (1,268[9]; 1,738; 1,929; 1,191; 1,183)

Total page views (including /GC): (129,004).

Page views as a percentage of Total:  Index (23%), Standardizing (5%), Joel Best (4%), Howard Wainer (3%), Adult numeracy (3%) and StatLit Papers (2.4%). All the rest were less that 2.4% except "Other" (22%).

New pages in 2012: StatLit2012 (1,297[7]), Video1 (406[2])and Knapp (196[1]).

Note: Website statistics are tabulated by the DeepMatrix program LiveStats® .XSP V8.03. Each month, the views for the top 25 website pages are tabulated.  Those pages that aren't in the top 25 that month are treated as having zero views. 

* Pages with less than 12 months statistics are indicated by the asterisk (no adjustment). Pages with less than 9 months of statistics are omitted (except those that are student assigned during certain months).

In 2012, the StatLit web site has 61 htm pages in the main directory. Others include student-assigned pages (/GC) and the Keck Survey.

Navigation page views (2012; 2011; 2010; 2009; 2008) totaled (10,203; 11,180; 9,716; 9,522; 8,474): Statistical Literacy (2,616; 3,046; 2,729; 2,396; 2,100), Statistical Reasoning (2,081; 2,051; 1,617*; 1,625; 1,425), StatLit News (1,980*; 2,162; 1,836; 1,928; 1,863), Authors (1,578*; 2,245; 1,980; 2,033; 1,860), Numeracy (1,533*; 1,676*; 1,554*; 1,540; 1,226) and Authors2 (415*[3]).

Student-assigned page-views [all via /GC] were not totaled.    

TOP SITE SEARCH-PHRASES-2011##

1. Joel Best (238; 835; 1,147; 594): See Joel Best author page. [Billie Joel?]

2. graphs (171; 567; 654; 634): Schield Percentage Graphs in USA Today

3. Howard Wainer (137; 424;340; 110): See Howard Wainer page.

4. Statistical Literacy (237; 341; 385; 249): See Statistical Literacy. Includes "StatLit"

5. Quantity words (317; 547; 264): Schield, Why Students Use 'Many'?

6. Data (111; 80)

7. Standardiz... (110; 240; 100; 131):  Schield, Adjusting for Confounding Graphically.

8. Significance, substantial and statistical (110*; 168)

9. Numeracy and Math across curriculum (57*; 197; 75; 60): See Numeracy

10. Gerd Gigerenzer (44*; xxx)

11. quantitative reasoning (28*; 22; 33):  See Numeracy or Q/L

12. Simpson Paradox (19*; 45; 59; 54): Schield, "Adjust for Confounding Graphically".

13. Social construction and ambiguity (13*; 38): See Schield, Teaching the Social Construction of Statistics

14. Gerald Bracey (13*; 214; 94): See Gerald Bracey author page.

Each month, LiveStats ranks the search terms used and captures the top 20 with the associated number of referrals.  In 2011, this generated over a hundred unique search terms with 1,851 visits (plus 5,568 Other) for a total of 7,419 total search referrals. These search terms were grouped by search phrase  (so 'standardizing' and 'standardized' were counted together) into 45 groups.   Note that these numbers are very sensitive to how search terms are grouped into search phrases.  Note that most of the search referrals are tabulated under Other.

GOOGLE SITE RANKINGS

2012: Google & Yahoo rate www.StatLit.org as the #2 site for Statistical Literacy [after Wikipedia] for the first year after seven years as #1.

When two words are hyphenated, they are searched as a phrase.

#1:  Othmar Winkler, statistical prevarication, percentage graphs.

#2:  Statistical literacy, Howard Wainer, David Phyllis Whitin,  chance grammar, Jane-Miller statistics.

Top 5: standardizing (3), percentage grammar (3), statistical doublespeak (3), , Lynn Steen (3), Milo Schield (3), Joel Best (4).

Top 10: , USA Today graphs (6), Marc-Isaacson statistics (6), Dennis Haack (7), Gerd Gigerenzer (7), Gerald Bracey (8), John Paulos (8), adult numeracy (9).

This site was not in the first 30 for chance, Bernie Madison, confound, confounded, confounder. confounding, critical thinking, effect size, financial literacy, graphs, health literacy, health numeracy, induction, information literacy, innumeracy, interaction, Jane Watson, journalistic significance, Katherine Wallman, numeracy, quantitative literacy, quantitative reasoning, quantity words, randomness, significance,  Simpson's paradox, social construction, spurious, standardization, statistical education, statistically illiterate, statistics or Take care.

Process: Search on phrase (in quotes); Find first instance of statlit.org or Augsburg.edu/ppages/~schield [except for Milo Schield].

TOP 10 REFERRAL DOMAINS-2011##

Visits by Referral Domain.   Data (2011; 2010).  Total (46,742; 61,557)  Other (9,933; 8,563)

#0: www.dailyspeculations.com [linked to a picture]  (857; 11,393)

#1:  www.google.com   (12,693; 10,510)

#2:  ilt.ilstu.edu or pol.illinoisstate.edu   (10,761;  8,563)

#3:  www.google.co.uk (1,488; 1,263)