An Invitation to Join a Self-Policing Unit
I, of course, need to volunteer myself for the effort I am arguing for – asking questions is important but often is not as important as answering them. The forementioned studies obviously need to be conducted by those who have been at the forefront of the AP program and who have intimate knowledge of its history, operation, and complexity, such as the authors of RPFHS. My knowledge of AP statistics, documented in this article, is enough for me to raise questions as an interested “outsider”, but negligible for what is needed to conduct serious studies. However, I am hoping to turn my lack of knowledge or involvement into what perhaps is best depicted by the Chinese proverb “spectators may see more of a game than players.” When such studies are in place, I would like to invite a few statisticians to join me in forming a “self-policing unit” to provide an independent check of, and critical comments on, their design, analysis, and conclusions.
Sometimes when we statisticians carry out our “police duty”, we are ridiculed as being only interested in covering our own necks (or lower). But in the case of assessing AP statistics, it is not our necks but rather our entire profession’s future well-being at stake. No study of this sort can possibly be perfect, and it is anti-scientific to be overly cautious when facing such imperfections. At the same time, we can be confident that we are exercising the right level of cautiousness only when we hold ourselves to the highest possible standard given the practical constraints. Surely inferences always come with unavoidable uncertainties, but they should be free of avoidable mistakes, with or without passion, paradox, or pressure.
Let me conclude by thanking again the authors of RPFHS for their great inspiration. We definitely have a giant elephant in the room, to borrow a common idiom, but with a connotation echoing the “four blind men and an elephant” story: we need collective findings. We need to understand the elephant as a whole, and, metaphorically speaking, we need to move it outside the room to help to carry the heavy load and responsibility on our shoulders, as our profession becomes increasingly desired (and feared), in reality and in perception. How many of us had expected, just a year ago, that “For Today’s Graduate, Just One Word: Statistics” would be an actual headline in NY Times (Aug 6, 2009)?
Acknowledgements:
I thank Alan Agresti, Joe Blitzstein, Thomas Lee and Kari Lock for their very helpful comments. All “mis-takes of passions” are of course mine.
References:
Meng, X.-L. (2009) Desired and feared – what do we do now and in the next 50 years? The American Statistician. 63. 202-210.
Brown, E and Kass, R (2009) What is Statistics? (With Discussions.) The American Statistician. 63. 105-123.
Patterson, B (2009) Advanced Placement® Statistics Students’ Education Choices After High School. Research Notes RN-38, February 2009, College Board. Reproduced in part in Amstat News, May, 2009
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