Teaching Statistics is pleased to announce that the article entitled “Clinical trials concocted for the classroom” by Laura Bonnett, Kerry Dwan and Susanna Dodd has been awarded the Peter Holmes prize for 2024.
The aim of this prize is to highlight excellence in motivating practical classroom activity. Classroom-ready activities that are hands-on and reflect real life are of great value to teachers, especially if suitable for higher primary or middle school age groups, and especially if the activity provides authentic statistical learning of real and sometimes complex concepts in an analogous but simple construct. Another challenge is that school teachers also need to embed activities in given curricula under time restrictions. This article not only details an activity which meets these criteria but is fun and can be used in science festivals as well as in classrooms. The authors also describe how the activity can be extended, and a fun creative way of assessing or reinforcing learning. The school curricula for which the activity is designed is UK based, but the context of clinical trials is relevant worldwide and the authors’ cleverly simple activity can be used anywhere to illustrate the core concepts involved, taking anywhere between 5 and 60 minutes as desired.
Currently, the UK curriculum in Combined Science and in Biology, in programs over ages 5–18, includes gaining some familiarity with the development and testing of new drugs, including the multiple stages of testing and evaluation of safety and effectiveness. Some form of active learning can assist with challenging terminology and concepts as in clinical trials. Because of practicality and ethical challenges of running anything like a clinical trial in classroom or science festival settings, the authors designed “a simplistic activity of short duration to resemble a clinical trial”, using simple everyday props such as balloons, buckets and sand-timer to set up a PICO (population, intervention, comparator, and outcomes) model. The basic (science festival) version covers informed consent, randomisation, data collection and analysis. Classroom versions include relative risk, more on consent and randomisation, and extensions include intention-to-treat, per-protocol analysis, withdrawal, allocation concealment and blinding. The article also describes the use of “terminology bingo” to consolidate understanding of the terminology.
“This is a highly accessible and engaging paper that highlights an important application of statistics. The activity that is described is versatile and having extension activities means it can be implemented in a variety educational levels. I believe it will serve as a valuable resource for many statistics instructors.”
“I found the experimental idea to be clever and the article to be well-written – with a nice focus on DOE terminology.”
Overall, this article embodies the aim and spirit of the Peter Holmes prize in an excellent example of motivating practical classroom activity designed to assist understanding for all ages in a contemporary and important context.
History of the prize
The aim of this prize is to highlight excellence in motivating practical classroom activity. It is a fitting tribute to Peter Holmes who was a pioneer, leader, developer, evaluator and tireless advocate over many decades for the teaching of statistical practice and thinking across school levels and disciplines. He also cogently argued for these at foundational and introductory levels post-school. His advocacy of data investigations in UK school curricula in the 1970’s became the Plan, Collect, Process, Discuss (PCPD) description of the statistical data investigation process whose well-established role in statistical education pedagogy and practice is now being matched by similar advocacy in data science. Peter was Director of the Schools Council Project on Statistics Education at the University of Sheffield from 1975 to 1980. In 1978 the Teaching Statistics Trust was established, with Peter one of the first trustees, and the first editor of Teaching Statistics established by the Trust. Peter became the inaugural Director of the Centre for Statistical Education set up in 1983 jointly by University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University, co-chaired by Vic Barnett and Warren Gilchrist. In 1995 when this became the RSSCSE (Royal Statistical Society Centre for Statistical Education) and moved first to Nottingham University and then, in 1999, to Nottingham Trent University, Peter continued his work with the Centre, contributing to resources, reports and dedication to every aspect of good practice in teaching statistics. He was truly inspirational in everything he did.
We are pleased to honour Peter Holmes’ lifetime of achievements in teaching statistics through this prize.