Despite its reputation amongst students
as being tedious and technical, statistics
can offer a fascinating insight into many
areas ofour individual and collective lives,
according to Professor MacGillivray.
Image: iStockphoto

Professor Helen MacGillivray is president of the International Association for Statistical Education and one of the organisers of the Eighth International Conference on Teaching Statistics, held July 11-16 in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Professor MacGillivray is a much admired teacher who is helping to make statistics an exciting subject and encourages students to collect data on any issue that interests them.

"I've had students investigate what makes people accept flyers, how people behave at traffic lights and the heights of different types of muffins made with different flours and cooked under different conditions," Professor MacGillivray said.

"Statistics is the discipline that helps in obtaining, understanding and using information on real and complex topics that involve uncertainty and variation.

"It is not a set of procedures that provide answers by pushing buttons. Statistics provides ways to understand and interpret the uncertain, hence statistics is demanding but exciting in how it can help solve an amazing variety of problems."

Professor MacGillivray said the theme of the conference was "Data and context: towards an evidence-based society" which was about using real and rich contexts and data in teaching statistics.

"Statistics affect everything in our society, from road safety and health care to advertising and tourism," she said.

"There are plenty of real contexts available to help teach statistics and make it a more relevant and interesting subject to students of all ages."

Professor MacGillivray said 350 papers at the conference by presenters from more than 50 countries included Election poll "lies", Control in clinical trials and Teaching statistics to sports scientists and sports administrators: would it be easier to train monkeys?