STATISTICS IS A NECESSARY PART OF A WELL BALANCED PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION

1. STATISTICS IS A NECESSARY PART OF A WELL BALANCED PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION • Five points: • an IFLA project has examined the teaching of statistics within ILS courses at the qualifying level; • some possible explanations for the current situation; • implications for the future management of services, and the development of a cadre of well equipped research workers; • the role of professional associations and accrediting bodies; • action that the Section could take in Glasgow.

2. What’s Happening About the Teaching of Statistics in the ILS Schools Today? • Only one recent paper on the topic • Project emerges at the 2000 IFLA conference • Similar project from Section on Management and Marketing • Two projects rolled together • Evidence gathered from websites of ILS schools in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK and US

3. It can be confusing • A course in England = a number of modules, some are core and others may be optional. • In North America the related terms are a program comprising required and optionalcourses. • In Australia the modules are commonly called compulsory and optional units. • And there are different paths to qualification.

4. The requirements of accrediting bodies • ALIA…students should develop knowledge and skills in … “Evaluation, involving measurement and judgement…”. • ALA … “analysis, interpretation, evaluation…” • CILIP … numeracy listed under the heading of management and transferable skills. • The UK Quality Assurance Agency requires as a core element “The application of techniques for planning, implementing, evaluation and developing … services and systems”. • The aims of the courses vary

5. The syllabus for statistics as a core or required module • The majority described the syllabus as being an introduction to the nature of research, methods and techniques.

6. Frequency of occurrence of topics in core and optional Research Methods courses • Introduction to research methods 36 • Basic statistics 8 • Descriptive statistics 3 • Inferential statistics 2 • Regression 2 • Computational techniques 1 • Correlation 1 • Excel 1 • Goodness of fit 1 • Measure of dispersion 1 • Sampling 1

7. Some possible explanations • 1970’s high spot - focus on quantitative research • the overloading of the curriculum and advent of ICT • economic pressures

8. Implications for the future of management and research • complexity of the decisions that managers are required to make • a growing application of statistical approaches • research is also growing in importance once again. • And • evidence-based practice It is essential that practitioners have a sound grounding in statistics

9. Getting the message across to • ILS national associations • the broader field of the national statistics associations

10. The Section might consider • working with its powerful allies within IFLA • discussion with related international associations on a common core • a model curriculum for the teaching of statistics • developing short courses for independent study

11. Conclusion • statistics is receiving less attention in first qualification teaching in the ILS schools • this affects both research and professional practice • the need for practitioners to have a better understanding of the real purpose and use of statistics to provide effective service to users