American Statistical Association K-12 Poster Judging

5/1/11

Recently I volunteered as a professional statistician to judge the posters submitted to the American Statistical Association's K-12 Poster competition. Here are some of my thoughts on that process, and thoughts on the posters.

Process

Overall, the process was really enjoyable, and there were coffee and muffins and fruit waiting for us. The ASA headquarters building is really nice and light on the inside, something which is hard to tell from the outside driving by. The ASA staff is also very friendly and knowledgeable.

About 15 other judges were there, and our backgrounds included government, private industry, biostatistics, survey research, and teaching. We were given a scoring rubric, and clear instructions on the scoring process. The process made it so at least 2 people were reviewing every poster. After we judged the posters individually, we would then vote among our top choices. Most of the time, at least in the group I helped review, there wasn't much debate judging the top posters. The entire process took a little over 2 hours. I reviewed around 30 posters (95% CI: [27, 33]).

My suggestions for future review sessions are, in no order:

Posters

I was impressed with vast majority of the posters. Many of them asked interesting questions, had decent graphical elements, and were statistically sound. What follows is my advice to enhance a student's statistical poster for the future. In no order:

Good job to all volunteers and organizers - it was nice working with you. Great job to the students who worked to make the posters. I found the posters interesting and learned much from them. I hope to be able to judge more in the future!

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