Deconstructing Statistical Questions Author(s): David J. Hand Source: Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A (Statistics in Society), Vol. 157, No. 3 (1994), pp. 317-356 Published by: Wiley for the Royal Statistical Society Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2983526 Accessed: 17-01-2019 16:39 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
[email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Royal Statistical Society, Wiley are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A (Statistics in Society) This content downloaded from 71.232.212.173 on Thu, 17 Jan 2019 16:39:36 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms J. R. Statist. Soc. A (1994) 157, Part 3, pp. 317-356 Deconstructing Statistical Questions By DAVID J. HANDt The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK [Read before The Royal Statistical Society on Wednesday, December 15th, 1993, the President, Professor D. J. Bartholomew, in the Chair] SUMMARY Too much current statistical work takes a superficial view of the client's research question, adopting techniques which have a solid history, a sound mathematical basis or readily available software, but without considering in depth whether the questions being answered are in fact those which should be asked.