Andrew M. Thomas, StatCom Purdue
The number of ways in which data can be analyzed and leveraged to produce good for communities is manifold. One way in which these insights are delivered is via some form of statistical consulting center, located within a university, which aims to serve those at the university and/or in the surrounding community.
An instance of statistical consulting is the organization StatCom (Statistics in the Community). This organization is a decentralized network of university chapters that provides free statistical consulting services to local governments and other nonprofits. Some StatCom chapters also offer P–12 (preschool–12th grade) elements.
Founded at Purdue in 2001 by then-statistics graduate student Nels Grevstad and staff member Regina Becker, the number of StatCom chapters rose to 14 worldwide by 2013 and many of these continue to survive and thrive today.
Not only does StatCom offer the consulting services for community partners, but student volunteers have the opportunity to engage in meaningful service-learning opportunities. Importantly, this organization provides emerging scholars a chance to improve their ability to communicate statistical results to nonstatisticians and apply knowledge they’ve acquired throughout their coursework and studies.
Case Studies: Data for Public Good
From fall of 2018 to early spring of 2019, StatCom Purdue worked with the nonprofit Certell, which provides free full-semester curriculum for high-school social studies, to help them understand data collected from the online platforms through which their content is offered. StatCom created visualizations to show how users engaged with their eReader platform during the 2017–2018 school year by social studies subject and US state. The team also investigated the video viewing behavior of students and teachers. They found that the proportion of the video they watched was significantly different, but the proportion of the video watched followed a bimodal distribution for each group—they either watched a few seconds or the entire thing.
The team for this project consisted of three members, one of which was the team leader and main point of contact for the nonprofit. A report was produced and presented to Certell, which included all the analyses and additional questions their data team could investigate in the future. Team member Chuanhui Liu writes the following:
I learned from the Certell project that it’s a win-win for both of us: local [non-profit] businesses get free consulting advice and consultants get their hands dirty and are challenged to solve real-life problems. Although we [as] students are not experts in the online education industry, we listened to our client’s questions and concerns, tried our best at digging [out] valuable information from raw data, and presented our results in plain words.
In the spring of 2020, a team of three StatCom Purdue volunteers conducted a study on donation patterns for a local nonprofit, LTHC Homeless Services. Notably, the team noticed a large spike in donations in April 2020, as Indiana was in the middle of lockdown for the COVID-19 pandemic. Team leader for the project, David Arthur, had the following to say:
In our most recent project with LTHC Homeless Services, we were able to use donations data to better understand donation patterns over the last four years. Donations are the lifeblood for organizations like LTHC, and so understanding important questions regarding donations was very important. We were able to use their data to help them answer several questions regarding donors and their donation patterns. Some of these questions included, “How often do people donate?” “Who are the most consistent donors?” and “Who are potential future donors?” By helping LTHC use their data to glean insights into these questions, we were able to help them better understand their donors, which will in turn help them to strengthen their relationship with them, which will ultimately lead to more help and resources for those experiencing homelessness.
An important aspect of StatCom is the accessibility of the analysis to nonstatisticians. In both of these projects, nothing more advanced than a t-test was performed. In fact, the main focus of StatCom, at least at Purdue, has been designing and analyzing surveys, as well as summarizing and visualizing data. This suggests data for public good initiatives often need to go no further than summary. Helping community organizations understand their population of interest, collect relevant data, or understand data they already possess can have as much impact as advanced statistical methods, and in some cases, an even greater impact.
Data for Public Fun
StatCom Purdue also regularly engages with the community via P–12 outreach. In recent years, this has involved staffing a booth at Purdue homecoming and SpringFest and playing games with a statistical component to increase statistical literacy, advertise StatCom to community members, and simply have fun. Unlike many of the consulting projects, a number of undergraduate volunteers participated at these outreach events, helping track data in the interactive R Shiny apps that were developed, giving out candy to winners (everybody), and assisting in playing games.
At SpringFest 2019, as an homage to the tagline for Purdue’s 150th anniversary, attendees were encouraged to don an astronaut helmet and take a “Giant Leap.” Their heights and ages (with a few exceptions) were measured, and then their jump length was plotted against these quantities for everyone to see. Participants were also encouraged to guess the diameter of the Big Bass Drum of Purdue’s marching band and the height of the Purdue bell tower. The former demonstrated the concepts of correlation and regression, and the latter demonstrated the concept of an outlier—someone guessed the drum’s diameter to be 6,400 feet (the real figure is around 8 feet). Later, at homecoming, attendees were invited to play Craps Jr. to demonstrate the law of large numbers.
Taken together, these activities represent a small fraction of the work StatCom chapters across the country have taken part in to make a tangible impact on their communities. For almost 20 years, the Purdue chapter has thrived, producing reports and analyses for cornerstones of the community. Through StatCom, early-career statisticians learn to lead, collaborate, communicate, and put into practice their acquired knowledge for the good of society.
Further Reading
Gunaratna, Nilupa S., Craig A. Johnson, and John R. Stevens. 2007. Service-learning for graduate students through a student-run consulting program. Journal of Statistics Education 15(2):2.Reynolds, Eric, and Timothy NeCamp. 2018. STATCOM: Revitalization of statistical community service at universities. Amstat News, April, 22–23.
StatCom. 2013. STATCOM network members. Statistics in the Community (STATCOM). Retrieved June 7, 2020.
Vance, Eric A. 2015. Recent developments and their implications for the future of academic statistical consulting centers. The American Statistician 69(2):127–37.
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