Observations on the Type and Quality of Graphs Used in the ASA/NCTM Annual Poster Competition during the Years 2013 to 2016

• Activity Number: 240
• Type: Topic Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, August 1, 2016 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistical Education
• Author(s): Juergen Symanzik* and Christine Franklin* and Rodney Jee* and Rebecca Nichols* and Naomi B. Robbins*
• Companies: Utah State University and University of Georgia and Discover Financial Services and ASA and NBR
• Keywords: ASA Statistics Poster Competition ; Winners ; Effective Graphs ; Misleading Graphs ; Deceptive Graphs

Abstract

Each year, the ASA/NCTM Joint Committee on the Curriculum in Statistics and Probability and the ASA Education Department encourage students and their advisors to participate in its annual Poster Competition and Project Competition. Despite many high quality posters, there are frequently posters with relatively weak graphs among the winners. This was observed by members of the Statistical Graphics section and a task force was formed in late 2012 to collaborate with the ASA/NCTM Joint Committee to further improve the graphs in the posters. In this article, we will summarize which types of graphs have been used most frequently in the winning posters from 2013 to 2016 and which frequent mistakes could be found in these posters during these four years. We will discuss the single most frequent type of mistake, that is, several variations of 3D graphs, in more detail.