Swim in Data, Don't Sink
Here’s a challenge: look around and try not to engage with data. Statistics quantify everything from the weather predictions next week to the performance of firms whose achievements guide the national and global economy. It’s easy to get lost in the volume of data we encounter daily, but the importance of data collection and analysis is highlighted with every jobs report, public health event, or corporate breakthrough populating our headlines.
Breaking news, however, is not the only time that data literacy is needed. Job listings across all disciplines this year reveal that data analytics and statistical skills are among the proficiencies most sought by employers. The reasons for this trend are manifold: critical business decisions often come after the collection of large amounts of data, whether that be stakeholder opinions, KPIs, or market figures. Sifting through the raw data to produce meaningful information quickly confers enormous value to the company. And generation-defining technologies—AI, for a timely example—are built fundamentally upon massive amounts of data. From developer roles to marketing specialists to business-leading executives, the need to answer the question of what all the datapoints add up to is key.
Therein lies the concern with leaving out statistics from secondary education. The traditional math sequence confers robust analytical and logical thinking capabilities, but falls short of equipping students to answer real-world questions with data. On the other hand, statistics empowers its students to be quantitative visionaries.
“Everyday citizens need these competencies so that they can understand what is true and what is false,” says Reija Helenius, Director of the ISLP since 2009. Helenius is the Head of Development at Statistics Finland—the nation’s governmental statistics organization—and has a strong background in statistics, earning a PD in the subject from the University of Helsinki. In short, initiatives such as the poster competition are a way to ensure that in a world flooded with data, we will swim and not sink.
"Everyday citizens need these competencies so that they can understand what is true and what is false."
Reija Helenius
Director, ISLP
Encouraging Enthusiasm for Data Science
The realization is setting in that a new paradigm is needed. Educators globally have begun to revolutionize the way statistics is taught in secondary schools, such as incorporating probabilistic basics into precalculus courses to ensure that all students get a taste of statistical foundations. This means secondary schools are producing a new cohort of data-savvy graduates who can fit the bill of their prospective employers. Beyond the working world, developing these skills empowers the deeper critical thinking that is crucial to understanding, inquiring, trusting, mistrusting, and eventually making decisions with data.
Examples of award-winning student posters from previous competitions.
However, there is inequity in how easily students can access the tools they need to learn statistics. Enter the ISLP, whose mission is to bring these skills to all corners of the world, across age, racial, gender, and socioeconomic divides. All students ages 9-22 (broken into age groups of lower secondary, secondary, and undergraduate) are invited to participate, and they need only a teacher referral to register.
“Today’s students have many roles—they are the future decision makers, data users, data providers. Therefore, we think it’s important to start with young people,” Helenius says.
The cost to enter? $0.00.
Such an accessible competition requires immense planning and coordination, something Helenius has mastered over fifteen years of leading the initiative. “In the planning process, there are almost 200 country coordinators on every continent in about 90 countries,” she explains. But complexity aside, she adds that international cooperation at this level is undeniably exciting. Seeing everyone come together in support of the ISLP mission is one of her favorite aspects of the job.
The payoff for their efforts has been astounding; in 2023, more than 20,000 students, aged 12 to 22, participated. They have earned the support of several foundations.
Aligning our Common Visions for Accessible Statistical Education
JMP Statistical Discovery LLC has two key roles: a software producer, and an educational partner. The idea that deep statistical insights ought to be open and accessible to everyone is a core pillar for JMP as well; “democratizing statistics” is a key phrase in the company’s mission. It’s no surprise, then, that JMP is a supporter and sponsor of the ISLP and the poster competition. Each student who participates in the contest is given free twelve-month access to JMP® Statistical Discovery software as part of our academic package.
Students have full access to the data exploration and visualization tools that make the JMP product so valuable, removing the added challenge of learning to script in Python or R. While computer programming is another key skill in the computational age, it also has the potential to detract from the focus of the competition. And indeed, educational studies have documented that coding is one of the largest perceived barriers for introductory statistics students. The no-coding-required JMP interface provides an appealing alternative to script-based analytics, lowering the barriers for new students.
Outputs from the Graph Builder feature of JMP form the hallmarks of many groups’ posters, demonstrating the power and convenience of building meaningful, beautiful graphs without needing to code.
“Undergraduate students like to use JMP more freely,” Helenius says, “and also their teachers are very, very interested in using the software.”
In this way, we hope to participate in the statistical education revolution. By deconstructing barriers to entry in data science, interest from both students and their teachers can be cultivated. The support that JMP provides for the ISLP extends to education, too. JMP Principal Academic Ambassador Volker Kraft has provided training resources for students and educators, facilitating their data exploration ventures. The Global Academic Team at JMP is also dedicated to facilitating educational advancements.
Additionally, experts at JMP created the Statistical Thinking for Industrial Problem-Solving course, known as STIPS. This comprehensive curriculum—which is freely available online to anyone—outlines many of the most important statistical foundations, from basic exploratory data analysis to reducing variation in measurements to constructing elaborate statistically designed experiments. STIPS graduates earn both theoretical knowledge of statistical concepts as well as hands-on JMP use, preparing them to meaningfully incorporate data science practices into their work. A suite of tutorials on the JMP User Community also provide key hands-on training for those interested in honing their analytical skills. Between STIPS and the User Community, all JMP users, from prospective to advanced, can advance their knowledge free of charge.
“Everyone should know basic concepts about statistics and numerical data. If you read a newspaper, or listen to the radio, or look at web pages, you must know how to interpret and understand what is said,” Helenius concludes.
It’s part of a larger trend: data literacy is simply a necessity in the workforce, in our personal lives, and in higher education. The ISLP is uniquely positioned to champion statistical thinking among youth and create the next generation of data-forward thinkers. By supporting the poster competition, JMP aims to deconstruct barriers to entry in this technical field and to create a cycle of statistical advocacy. That partnership, and others like it, can yield a world filled not only with data, but with forward thinkers ready to conquer it.