Teaching a Course on Government Statistics in a University Statistics Department

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Teaching a Course on Government Statistics in a
University Statistics Department

• Patrick Murphy
• University College Dublin
• Ireland

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Outline of Talk

• 1. Introduction
• 2. Background Department Students
• 3. Course Development
• 4. The Course Content
• 5. The Course Presentation
• 6. Assessment
• 7. Students View
• 8. Lessons Leaned/Alterations
• 9. Conclusions

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Introduction
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STATISTICIANS Who are we?

• ACADEMIC Statisticians
• OFFICIAL Statisticians
• INDUSTRY Statisticians

Introduction
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COLLABORATION?

• Academics lt--gt Industry
• Academics lt--gt Official Statisticians

UCD Statistics

• 8 Academics
• 7 have collaborations with Industry

Introduction
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Statistics
Fe26
Definition now slightly IRONIC

• Facts for the use of the State
• State Arithmetic

Introduction
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Graduate Employment

• National Statistical Offices are significant
  Employers of Statisticians
• Ireland Central Statistics Office
• Small NSO
• But largest employer of Statisticians in Ireland
• gt70 Permanent Statisticians

Consider...
Introduction
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Training for such Graduates

• Statistics, Mathematics
• Economics, Social Science, Politics
• What about specific training in Official
  Statistics?

Introduction
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Graduate Training continued...

• 1999 Web search of Universities revealed
• University of Southampton, UK
• MSc in Official Statistics
• Monash University, Australia
• Later I discovered
• University of Ljubljana
• University of Helsinki

Introduction
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Real Official Statistics Training

• On the Job
• From International Organisations
• Training of European Statisticians
• TES Institute
• International Monetary Fund

Introduction
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BackgroundDepartment Students
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University College Dublin

• Largest University in Ireland
• gt20,000 Students
• Department of Statistics formed in 1986
• 8 full time Academic members

Background
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Statistics Students
Level 1 Statistics

• Approximately 120 Students
• Arts
• 3 years combined with another subject
• Science
• 4 year single honours degree or
• 4 year joint honours with another subject

Degree through Arts or Science Faculties
Background
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Final Year Undergraduate Courses included

• Time Series
• Survey Sampling
• Design and Analysis of Experiments
• Survival Analysis
• Bio-statistics
• Actuarial Statistics
• Regression Theory
• Non-Parametric Statistics

Background
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Higher Diploma in Statistics

• One year graduate diploma
• Conversion course for graduates of cognate
  disciplines e.g. Psychology, Politics, Economics,
  Computer Science

M.Sc., M.A.

• One year taught Masters Degree
• Available to Students with a good honours degree
  in Statistics, Mathematics or Actuarial
  Financial Studies

Background
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Course Development
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Course Development 1 Goals

• To provide students with an appreciation of the
  extent to which Official Statistics pervades the
  lives of citizens of a state
• To describe the process by which data are
  collected, processed, analysed and disseminated
  by an NSI
• To introduce some techniques used extensively in
  NSIs that are not taught in other courses in the
  Department of Statistics

Course Development
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Course Development 2 Logistics

• Students
• Final Year Undergraduate
• Graduate Diploma
• Masters Degree
• One-Semester course
• 24 hours of lectures
• 6 extra computer practical hours

Course Development
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Course Development 3 Problems

• Existing Courses Time Series, Survey Sampling
• Arts Students may be studying
• Economics, Politics, Sociology etc.
• Science Students
• unfamiliar with these subjects
• 1999 Web Search revealed few, if any, similar
  courses
• Textbook?
• My own background in CSO

Course Development
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Course Development 4 Course Materials
Books used by official statisticians

• National Accounts
• UN System of National Accounts
• Eurostat - European System of Accounts
• Balance of Payments
• IMF - Balance of Payments Manual, Compilation
  Guide and Textbook

Course Development
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Course Development 4 Course Materials
Other Irish official statistics sources

• That Was Then, This is Now - Change in Ireland
  1949-1999
• Published by the CSO
• Journal of the Statistical and Social Inquiry
  Society of Ireland
• Articles by TP Linehan Ex Director General CSO

Course Development
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Course Development 4 Course Materials
Some parts of the course were easy to prepare

• For Example
• Index Number Theory
• Databases

Course Development
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The Course
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Course Content
1. History

• Domesday book
• IMF, Eurostat
• Ireland 1800 - 2000
• CSO
• Background reading on UK

The Course
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Course Content
2. Legal and Institutional

• Statistics Act in Ireland, NSB
• International Organisations
• IMF, OECD, ILO, Eurostat etc.
• CSO as an example of an NSI
• Including Processing of statistics
• Non-response, Missing data, Quality Control,
  Confidentiality, CAPI, Edifact

The Course
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Course Content
3. The Statistics

• National Accounts
• Balance of Payments
• External Trade
• Demography
• Agriculture
• Building
• Buisness register
• Vital Statistics

• Data Bank
• Industry
• Labour Market
• Prices
• Retail Sales
• Services
• Transport Tourism
• Non CSO data

The Course
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Course Content
4. Index Numbers

• History of Cost of Living Indices
• Laspeyres Paasche
• Substitution Bias
• Fisher Index
• Chain method
• CPI calculation - Household Budget Survey
• Purchasing Power Parities

The Course
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Course Content
5. Databases

• RDBMS
• Normalisation, SQL etc...
• MS ACCESS

The Course
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Course Content
6. Additional Topics

• Guest Lecturers to reinforce relevance of
  official statistics
• Regional Accounts
• CPI for Pensioners

The Course
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Presentation of the Course

• Content not Mathematical but Discursive
• Statistics Students not used to this
• Lot of material covered in class
• Wanted to encourage interaction in class
• Course home page on W W W
• Course notes on web as PDF files
• Links to external sites, NSIs etc.

Hence...
The Course
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Assessment
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Course Assessment

• 30 Continuous Assessment
• 70 Final Exam
• Continuous Assessment consisted of projects to be
  completed by students in groups of two or three
• Six weeks to complete
• Oral Presentation
• Written Report

Assessment
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Projects in Year One
Projects were based on CSO statistics

• Unemployment Statistics
• Agricultural Accounts
• BOP40 - Balance of Payments Survey
• Tourism Statistics
• Consumer Price Index and Household Budget Survey

Assessment
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Projects in Year One
Content

• Descriptions of concepts measured
• Descriptions of data collection procedures
• International comparisons
• Students should also act as consumers and analyse
  recent statistics

Assessment
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Students Views
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Students Views

• Course unlike others in Statistics Department
• Arts students acclimatised faster
• Reaction generally positive
• Some students very interested in area which was
  new to them
• Two students chose careers in Official Statistics
  directly because of this course
• 3 science students didnt perform well

Students Views
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Lessons Learned/Alterations
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Lessons Learned/Alterations

• Course content changed slightly
• Examination format changed
• Projects revised to be more relevant to daily
  life
• New projects did not concentrate on one are but
  combined many to answer a question

Report writing was flawed in first year so
guidelines were introduced for second year
Lessons
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Projects in Year Two

• Project 1.
• Economists warn that the Irish economy is in
  danger of overheating. They cite the recent
  increase in inflation as one piece of evidence.
  Discuss, using as many sources as you can find to
  back up your opinion.

Lessons
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Projects in Year Two

• Project 2.
• Using at least five different indicators compare
  Irelands economic performance since 1990 with
  the rest of the world and explain why the Irish
  economy has become known as The Celtic Tiger

Lessons
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Projects in Year Two

• Project 3.
• There is currently a housing crisis in this
  country. Construction firms are booming but a few
  years ago builders couldnt find jobs. Using as
  many official statistics as you can, describe the
  extent of this situation and explain what you
  think is its cause.

Lessons
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Project Guidelines

• Size 15 pages 12pt font
• No photocopied material
• One page Introduction Conclusion
• International Comparisons
• Remainder of 15 pages discretionary
• Appendix 1
• Methodologies Sources used by the NSIs
• Appendix 2 Sources for report
• No Plagiarism, Complete Group Participation,
  Deadline

Lessons
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2003

• Changes in UCD caused cancellation of this course

Future

• Likely amalgamation of Survey Sampling course
  with this Official Statistics course

Lessons
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Conclusions
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Conclusions

• Goals met
• Students have better understanding of
• work done by official statisticians
• how the results of that pervade society
• Textbook ???
• Graduates employed in official statistics
• Guest lecturers

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Conclusions

• Conference on Official and Public Statistics
• Centre for Official Statistics at UCD?
• Recommend similar courses elsewhere

FOR MORE INFO...
Patrick.Murphy_at_UCD.IE
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Hopefully this hasnt been too boring...