Section on Statistical Education

Contributed by Ron Wasserstein

"Best Contributed Paper Award from 1998"

Harry Norton is the winner of the 1998 Best Contributed Paper Award for the Statistical Education Section. Dr. Norton, who teaches at the Carolinas Medical Center, received the highest overall audience evaluation for his presentation entitled "Teaching Undergraduate Students and Medical Residents How to Identify Fallacies in Numerical Reasoning." Those attending his session will not soon forget the lessons he taught and the unique rewards he provided his learners! A plaque recognizing his achievement will be presented at the Business Meeting of the Section in Baltimore next August.

For many years, audiences at contributed paper sessions in the Statistics Education Section have been providing feedback to presenters. The goal of the evaluations and of the award is to encourage high quality contributed paper presentations.

Thirty-nine papers were evaluated at the Anaheim meetings. To be eligible for the award, a paper must be evaluated by at least 15 people. The Section is grateful to the numerous audience members who took the time to fill out the evaluation form, and to the session chairs who distributed and collected the forms. Comments and suggestions about the evaluation and award process should be directed to Ron Wasserstein.

From the Newsletter of the Section on Statistical Education of the American Statistical Association, Winter 1999

"Best Contributed Paper Award from 1997"

Ann Watkins is the winner of the 1997 Best Contributed Paper Award for the Section on Statistical Education. Dr. Watkins, a professor in the Department of Mathematics at California State University-Northridge, received the highest overall audience evaluation for her presentation entitled "Activity-Based Statistics." A plaque recognizing her achievement will be presented at the Business Meeting of the Section on Statistical Education in Dallas this August.

From the Newsletter of the Section on Statistical Education of the American Statistical Association, Winter 1998

"Best Contributed Paper Award from 1996"

Robin Lock is the winner of the 1996 Section on Statistics Education Best Contributed Paper award. His paper, "Datasurfing on the World Wide Web," received the highest audience evaluations among the 44 contributed papers presented at the meetings in Chicago. Professor Lock will receive his award at the 1997 meetings in Anaheim. The Statistics Education Section has conducted the Best Contributed Award contest for many years to promote high quality presentations.

From the Newsletter of the Section on Statistical Education of the American Statistical Association, Winter 1997

"Best Contributed Paper Award from 1995"

W. Robert "Bob" Stephenson of the Department of Statistics at Iowa State University will be the recipient of the 1995 Statistical Education Section Best Contributed Paper Award. Dr. Stephenson will receive a plaque at the Section Business Meeting in Chicago next August.

Thirty-five contributed papers were presented in the Section at the Orlando meetings. Audience members were given a form to evaluate the speakers (on a scale of 4=excellent to 1=poor) on several aspects of their presentations. To be eligible for an award, a speaker must be evaluated by at least 15 people. Among those eligible, Stephenson received the highest overall rating with an average score of 3.68 for his talk, entitled "Statistics at a Distance."

The Best Contributed Paper Award was established by the Section over 10 years ago to encourage better contributed paper presentations. The Statistics Education Section is grateful to all those who presented, as well as to those who took the time to evaluate the talks.

By Ron Wasserstein in the Newsletter of the Section on Statistical Education of the American Statistical Association, Winter 1996

"Best Contributed Paper Award from 1994"

The winners of the 1994 Statistical Education Section Best Contributed Paper Award are Terry Callanan and Hank Altland of Eastman Kodak Company. Their presentation, "Providing Effective Training in Industry-An Experience with Robust Design," received the highest overall evaluation by audience members of the 29 contributed papers presented in the five contributed paper sessions sponsored by the Section. Dr. Callanan and Dr. Altland will receive a plaque in honor of their achievement at the Section business meeting in Orlando next summer.

For over 10 years, the Section has asked audience members to fill out a brief evaluation of each contributed paper presentation. Summaries of the results are sent to the presenters after the meetings. The goals of the program are to improve presentations by providing feedback and to award outstanding presentations.

By Ron Wasserstein in the Newsletter of the Section on Statistical Education of the American Statistical Association, Winter 1995

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