An exploratory study of how undergraduate students use official statistics as a source of information for their academic assignments

Abstract

The official statistics generated by government offices and ministries are fundamental to guide actions in the decisionmaking process within a country. For example, official statistics could be used to promote and allocate public goods like local, regional and national budgets. Moreover, due to the high quality standard required to generate official data, such information is ideal to promote a better understanding about the important facts in economic, sociodemographic, geographic, environmental and governmental management issues. However, it has been observed that many undergraduate students do not use such data in an extensive manner, and they reveal limitations in accessing, analyzing and extrapolating such information to their benefit, both in academic and personal settings. The aim of this work is to describe to what extent Mexican undergraduate students use official statistics as part of their academic assignments, and to identify the main obstacles they encounter when trying to access and use official statistics.

The level of digitization of the information society in EU countries as a determinant of the use of official statistics

“…The authors drew attention to the importance of data quality and official statistics, which should be disseminated not only by statistical authorities, but also constitute the subject of academic education. Silva and Aguilar (2018) discussed the steps that should be taken regarding official statistics to better understand important economic, socio-demographic, geographical and environmental facts and country management, and discussed the lack of interest in such statistics in the Mexican student environment and the difficulties faced by those who would be keen to become familiar with such information. In turn Izquierdo, Salcedo and Gómez (2018) noted the importance of cooperation between public data providers (owners of administrative data) and the private sector.…”