Professional ethics in statistics classrooms

In the last decade there has been globally known events where chief statisticians have been sacked or worse. A quick Google search on “Statistician sacked” with a country name will bring many web pages to explore. The most famous of these events is Andreas Georgiou case in Greece. Such news brought professional ethics into lime light more than ever for statisticians. In a world where data is accumulated faster than taking a breath and fake news encountered more often than not, it is important to make sure our students are ethical statistical practitioners. This is true even for the students who only study one first year statistics service unit.

Like many professionals, statisticians also have professional ethical guidelines such as the ISI Declaration on Professional Ethics (https://isi-web.org/declaration-professional-ethics), Royal Statistical Society Code of Conduct (https://rss.org.uk/about/policy-and-guidelines/code-of-conduct/) and many more.

As educators of statistics, what are we doing to inform and educate our students on any future ethical concerns they might have? Is it sufficient to point them to professional ethics and leave it to them to learn? How do we teach ethics in statistics classrooms?

In this presentation, I share my experience of how teaching ethics can be incorporated into statistics classrooms to make the world a better place and to arm our students with professional ethical skills. We are in a position to give our learners opportunities to have ethical lens on their (future) statistical practice and to empower them to critically evaluate ethical dilemmas they may encounter in their careers. Case studies can be used as examples to demonstrate the application of professional ethical guidelines in decision-making processes. The future is bright if we work towards making it bright, ethics bring light to everything, so let us work together to have a bright future.