Investigating students’ use of official statistical data

Abstract

Abstract This paper presents the perceptions of social science students about the use of official statistical data, in the context of active learning of Statistics, and other topics related to Applied Statistics. In order to make these courses more attractive, and to challenge and stimulate statistical education, our students work on projects in which they use official statistical data to explore practical, real-life issues. Their attitudes and perceptions regarding official statistical data sources are very important, both for acquisition of statistical analysis skills, essential for their future professional life, and for improvement of the official data sources. Therefore, we conducted a custom-made survey among students from Romanian higher education institutions (HEIs) and gathered a database with 334 responses, which allowed us to identify the main characteristics, problems and solutions concerning the use of statistical official data sources by university students.