Peter Holmes Prize Announcement 2022

Abstract

The article entitled “The ‘p-hacking-is-terrific’ ocean – a cartoon for teaching statistics” by Dinghan Guo and Yue Ma has been awarded the Peter Holmes prize for 2022 The aim of this prize is to highlight excellence in motivating practical classroom activity. This article describes using a cartoon depicting “going on a fishing expedition” to assist in classroom discussion, student discovery activity, awareness and understanding of the scientific dangers and potential mistakes in searching for evidence in the form of “statistical significance” to support a scientific hypothesis or claim. The article underscores the importance in teaching the understanding of fundamental statistical concepts and their responsible use, for all students no matter what their future, and in professional development and re-development for researchers in other disciplines. The article uses a conversational style to outline some ways in which the cartoon could be used with a set of trigger questions. Although it is not the type of cartoon that an instructor would just put up on the screen to get laughs and have a brief classroom discussion, it can be used at different educational levels, from senior school to postgraduate and workplace in other disciplines, to discuss and think about different levels of questions relevant to the teaching context and cohort. The core messages of the article, including the inevitability of eventually getting the outcome you want if you just keep trying, making assumptions as desired all the way, appear to be difficult to communicate even to experienced scientists, and the fishing analogy is direct while also allowing for diving into more complex underlying concepts if appropriate. With references to pertinent commentary from other disciplines, statisticians and statistical educators, the article demonstrates how a cartoon can capture attention, highlight an important problem in use and misuse of statistics in research, and be used to trigger questions and student exploration, enquiry and discussion at a level relevant to the teaching context and cohort. Overall, this article embodies the aim and spirit of the Peter Holmes prize in an excellent demonstration of a fun stimulus to trigger classroom discussion and student questions and enquiry, across disciplines and educational levels, in order to promote responsible use, and prevent or call out misuse, of some fundamental statistical concepts.