The Statistical Literacy Initiative aims to reduce the misuse and misinterpretation of statistical hypothesis testing in Life Science papers.
Most publications in this field use statistics to support claims about the results of an experiment. However, few life scientists receive formal statistical training or get detailed feedback on statistical analyses presented in a manuscript during the process of publication peer-review. The limited statistical literacy and lack of access to professional consulting can contribute to poorer quality of scientific work and reduced reproducibility of results.
Our first goal is to characterize the statistical needs and levels of statistical education of researchers across different career stages and geographic regions, which will form the basis for subsequent educational and advocacy efforts. This first goal is presently the most developed; we are planning to launch a newly designed international statistical literacy survey by the end of 2019.
Our second goal is to systematize existing resources and create new educational tools to close the gaps in statistical knowledge.
Finally, the or group strives to advocate for the wide-spread inclusion of statisticians as reviewers on papers in life sciences.
Members involved in this initiative:
Alex Stolyarova, Natalie Clark, Guido van Mierlo, Nafisa Jadavji, Tracey Weissgerber, Anton Nathanson, Peter Linders, Hung Lo, Lin Wang, Bhavik Nathwani, Jain Prateek, Max Puelma Touzel, Alex van Vliet, Hedyeh Ebrahimi, Jeffrey Erlich, Yen-Chung Chen, Salem Youssef Mohamed, Tomislav Mestrovic
