New tools to improve statistical literacy – developments and projects - an ESS priority and reality Louise Corselli-Nordblad, Britta Gauckler Eurostat Paper prepared for the 16th Conference of IAOS OECD Headquarters, Paris, France, 19-21 September 2018 Session 3 E, Thursday, 20/09, 10h30: Improving statistical literacy Louise Corselli-Nordblad [email protected] European Commission-Eurostat Britta Gauckler [email protected] European Commission-Eurostat New tools to improve statistical literacy – developments and projects Prepared for the 16th Conference of the International Association of Official Statisticians (IAOS) OECD Headquarters, Paris, France, 19-21 September 2018 Note: This Paper should not be reported as representing the views of Eurostat. The views expressed are those of the authors. ABSTRACT The need for statistical organisations to invest in statistical literacy is commonly agreed and reinforced by the current concerns around "fake news". Yet, there are numerous open questions around how and what the official statistics community should best invest in this endeavour. An overarching strategy for the European Statistical System (ESS) is missing and one can question if in a fast-paced world a long-term strategy is useful to tackle the issues. As Wild puts it, the statistics education should invest in ways to "…deliver lasting benefits in a fast changing world."1 Under the ESS Vision 2020 project Digital communication, User analytics and Innovative products (DIGICOM) the ESS has started to invest in this area. Initiatives range from building new partnerships with the educational system, piloting innovative tools, such as gamification and competitions, to digital tools which explain statistics in a clear and easy way. This paper will describe the key target groups and the projects in this area. Keywords: statistical literacy; statistical education and promotion; statistical communication 1 Wild, Chris: Statistical literacy as the earth moves. Statistics Education Research Journal, May 2017, Vol. 17 Issue 1, p31-37. 7p. 1. INTRODUCTION AND DEFINITION In an era of fake news, it is increasingly important for citizens to understand figures presented in newspapers, on the internet and elsewhere. This importance is commonly emphasised, however, concrete projects on how to better understand figures and their origin, in other words statistical literacy, are not always available and the specific role that statistical offices should play in this field is not yet established. In this paper, recent and joint efforts on statistical literacy within the European Statistical System (ESS) and in Eurostat are described. The paper begins with a short introduction to define the term and the target groups that the products and projects aim at. There is not always unity when it comes to a definition of statistical literacy. Additionally, the fact that “…what it means to be statistically literate is also changing”2 adds to the difficulty of a uniform definition of statistical literacy for official statistics. However, a general definition for a changing society could be formulated as: Statistical literacy is the ability to understand statistics and to be able to draw conclusions from them. Statistical literacy products may simultaneously use texts, numbers and visualisations to communicate messages in an easy and understandable way. For the presented projects the identified target groups are: Students with some knowledge of statistics, Pupils and teachers in upper secondary education, Anyone else with little or no knowledge about statistics. 2. LITERACY PROJECTS IN THE ESS The European Statistical System systematically invests in the area of statistical literacy under the ESS Vision 2020 project Digital communication, User analytics and Innovative products (DIGICOM) running from 2016 to 2019. DIGICOM aims to modernise the communication and dissemination of European statistics. This is achieved by exploring and developing innovative dissemination products and services based on experiences within the ESS and concrete needs of European statistics users. DIGICOM consists of four parallel work packages dealing with (1) user analysis, (2) innovative and sharable products and tools, (3) open data dissemination and (4) communication and promotion. Projects in the area of statistical literacy are included in the last work package on communication and promotion. As a first step, experts from several National Statistical Institutes (NSIs) have developed an inventory that describes existing literacy practices in the ESS. This inventory was shared among all ESS members to provide inspiration and facilitate future collaboration and sharing in this area. 2 Wild, Chris: Statistical literacy as the earth moves. Statistics Education Research Journal, May 2017, Vol. 17 Issue 1, p31-37. 7p. Through this, numerous important statistical literacy products and activities for official statistics in the ESS could be identified. Two priority areas were selected which are described below in more detail: The engagement with schools and the educational sector, and The development of e-learning tool(s) and games. The DIGICOM work package experts discussed the best way to engage with schools and the educational system on how to find a project which is fun and playful in order for pupils and teachers to join. It was concluded that a competition with suitable incentives would be a good practice to engage with young people. This would allow the participating national offices to deepen their relations with schools or to gain access to the educational sector. Some national statistical offices in the Member States already have close ties with the national educational system, while other offices do not. As a result, the 1st European statistical competition (ESC) was implemented. The project follows best practices from previous national statistical competitions of INE Spain and other statistical institutes. The preparation work for the ESC was started in 2017 and was launched at the beginning of 2018 in 11 participating countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Finland, France, Greece, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain). It was held in two phases for two age categories (14-16 years old and 16-18 years old). The first phase was a national competition, carried out in collaboration with partnering schools and teachers. It comprised an online test about basic knowledge of statistical concepts and also an in-depth assignment, generally an analysis of a dataset where students had to show their ability to find information on national and European websites and publications. Depending on the age category, the difficulty of the assignment was adjusted. In the second, European, phase of the competition, the winning teams were invited to reflect upon the importance of official statistics with a more creative approach. The top 180 students (in 63 teams) qualified to represent their countries in the final European round produced a short video on why official statistics matter. To evaluate the videos, a high-level jury of acclaimed experts within communication, media literacy, fact-checking and data visualisation was set up, most of them working outside statistical organisations. The winners of the ESC, Toivasnik and Pakila9D, were announced during an award ceremony at the Q2018 conference on official statistics and were shown to a wide audience.3 The joint effort of this competition was an overall success and its objectives have been fully achieved. Already the number of students and teacher reached via this project shows its significance: over 11 000 students aged 14-18 and 1 000 teachers took part in the competition. In addition, the ESC is a good way to engage with students and teachers in order to gain more insight about the statistical knowledge of this age group and to better understand teachers' needs. Finally, the videos produced provide a fresh view on official statistics and have themselves the potential to serve as vehicles for statistical literacy. Given its success, Eurostat and the European Statistical System decided to build upon it and the ESC 2019 is already being planned, with even more participating NSIs. 3 The top five for each age category have been published on the competition's website. 5 In the area of the development of e-learning tools there are already numerous products from different sources online, however few are from official, trusted sources. At ESS level this was found as another priority area, which could also serve the educational sector at university level, as professors and academics mainly produce their own e-learning tools and there is no ‘official’ material available for them to use. Some NSIs have already produced good practices and modern e-learning products. Among them, the e- learning modules of Destatis (the Federal Statistical Office of Germany) were identified to be easily deployed also within other countries. Thus, modules dealing with basic statistical concepts like means and averages, the development of indicators, data collection methods, data protection, quality of statistical processes and products, main errors in dealing with statistics, etc. are currently being translated and adjusted to address also users at a European level. The first modules are expected to be ready in the autumn 2018. Gamification products is another area that the DIGICOM project has on its agenda. The objective is to make use of this playful approach to motivate and attract students in an interactive way. Over the last two years