Why and how you can promote more students become statisticians

Transcript

Why and how you can promote more students become statisticians

[00:00:00] Alexander: You are listening to The Effective Statistician Podcast, the weekly podcast with Alexander Schacht and Ben Piske designed to help you reach your potential lead great science and serve patients while having a great [00:00:15] work life balance

[00:00:23] in addition to our premium courses on the Effective Statistician Act. Academy. We [00:00:30] also have lots of free resources for you across all kind of different topics within that academy. Head over to the effective statistician.com and find the [00:00:45] Academy and much more. For you to become an effective statistician.

[00:00:50] I’m producing this podcast in association with PSIA community dedicated to leading and promoting use of statistics within the healthcare industry [00:01:00] for the benefit of patients. Join PSI today to further develop your statistical capabilities with access to the ever-growing video on demand content library free registration to all PSI webinars and much, much more.[00:01:15] 

[00:01:15] Head over to the PSI website@psiweb.org to learn more about PSI activities and become a PSI member today.[00:01:30] 

[00:01:30] Welcome to new episode of the Effective Statistician, and today I have two volunteers from PSI On the line, Emma and Alex. Hi Emma. Alex, how are you doing today? 

[00:01:43] Emma: And good morning [00:01:45] Zaa. 

[00:01:45] Alexander: Awesome. Maybe before we get started and talk about STEM today, you can introduce yourself. Emma, how about you getting started?

[00:01:55] Ladies first. 

[00:01:56] Emma: Thank you. Yeah. Hi Alexander. So my name’s Emma Crawford. [00:02:00] I am a principal, bio statistician at Icon, and I’ve been in the industry now for just over 10 years volunteering with Clear Thrive for the same amount of time in their careers group. So yeah, I’ve always had a keen interest in helping to promote art [00:02:15] industry to the students.

[00:02:16] Previously working with university students in the careers event, but for the last couple of years, overseeing the school’s team as we relaunched our school’s outreach efforts after the Covid lockdown. So yeah, that’s about me. [00:02:30] I’ll pass over to Alex. 

[00:02:32] Alex: Hi. Hi, I’m Alex. I am a principal statistician at GSK.

[00:02:36] I’ve been in the pharmaceutical industry for just a year and a half. I’m quite a newbie. Before then, I was a statistician in. [00:02:45] Clinical trials unit at Kings College at the Institute of Psychiatry. And before then I did my PhD at the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and Imperial College London, where I was very much involved in outreach with [00:03:00] young people around science of epidemiology, statistics, and also mental health.

[00:03:05] ’cause I worked on a a large school cohort study. 39 schools in London. And before then I was actually a teacher, so I was a teacher in [00:03:15] secondary schools, comprehensive schools in London for eight years. And I also worked briefly at an education charity teach first. So at, yeah, outreach for young people is with something I’ve been involved with a while now.

[00:03:28] Okay. 

[00:03:28] Alexander: Okay. Very good. [00:03:30] Yeah. So today we wanna talk about STEM outreach and stem. As I learned just before recording this podcast, it’s about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. So squarely [00:03:45] in where we are with statistics, before we talk about that outreach, let’s first into the question. Why do we actually need to invest in that and why should we, as an [00:04:00] industry, reach out to, to schools to support this kind of STEM area?

[00:04:07] Emma: Yeah, I can go first on that one. So obviously, yeah. Investing in STEM outreach needs to be really important because [00:04:15] essentially that’s how we. Secure our next generation of statisticians into the pharmaceutical industry through various career efforts. When you speak to people about how they got their jobs in the industry, or how they [00:04:30] discovered the wonderful world of medical statistics.

[00:04:33] For most people, it wasn’t until they were actually already at university completing their studies, most likely at an undergraduate level, sometimes even not until a postgraduate level. We [00:04:45] obviously, we’ve been very fortunate to have a generation of people keen in continuing their mathematics studies through to university to enable them to discover that industry later on.

[00:04:57] But I guess. In schools, [00:05:00] mathematics seems to sometimes get a bit of a bad reputation. It’s not seen perhaps as a cool subject. It’s sometimes seen quite hard. A lot of people are like, oh, I don’t like maths. Why do I need to use it? And I think sometimes this [00:05:15] puts off young people in wanting to continue their studies or to continue their career and.

[00:05:22] I know for me and for most other people I speak to, if you ask them, did you ever hear about the pharmaceutical industry when you were at [00:05:30] school? The answer is most likely no. You’ve got all these kids decide happy to take really important decisions early on in their life about I. What careers they, what, what subjects they want to study at school for their exams, what they want to do when they go to university with [00:05:45] that big aim of a career in mind.

[00:05:46] And actually not many of them know of the pharmaceutical industry as a whole and the opportunities that it presents, as well as the different opportunities in. Maths and statistics for careers most often, or not [00:06:00] accounting or teaching, banking, finance, they’re the very obvious choices that are promoted to you if you seem to do well at maths and want to continue your studies.

[00:06:10] So we. Really want to try and engage [00:06:15] those students earlier on in their academic careers just to show them the possibilities, not to necessarily guarantee them as a set and headcount into our industry later on, but just to help open their eyes, excite them, show them a [00:06:30] different side of maths that they’ve probably not come across before to hopefully get them to continue their studies in relevant subjects.

[00:06:37] As we all know, it’s not necessarily required. You have to come through. Of mathematics undergraduate degree route [00:06:45] anymore to enter medical statistics roles to. Keep encouraging them and inspiring them to hopefully continue on studying those STEM subjects. So whether it’s science, maths, engineering, technology to allow them to come and to [00:07:00] continue to fulfill those vital STEM roles that we need in our industry.

[00:07:04] So yeah, if companies don’t support that, don’t help reach out to their local communities and help to inspire those children, then. That could have [00:07:15] impact on our next generation and we could struggle to continue the vital work that our jobs do. 

[00:07:22] Alexander: Yeah, completely agree. When I was at in school, I had no idea about the pharmaceutical industry, and I [00:07:30] had no idea that with my medical background, I could later on work in the pharmaceutical industry.

[00:07:37] I only learned about that halfway through my mass. Studies because I got [00:07:45] in touch with one professor that worked on medical statistics and by chancellor. I stepped over his course and said, got me interested into medical statistics. Otherwise, I would’ve very likely [00:08:00] ended up in accounting or insurance or any, any kind of finance area.

[00:08:07] Alex, what about your experience with that? 

[00:08:10] Alex: Yeah, my initial experience was quite anecdotal. I actually spent a lot of time [00:08:15] working in the girls school in London, and anecdotally, people would say that girls can, even though they actually exceed in their, in terms of their exam results compared to boys at GCC, their self-awareness of [00:08:30] their ability is almost quite often low than the boys.

[00:08:34] So there’s. A lot of research saying that girls don’t see themselves as mathematicians and scientists, and because that happens quite early in in their school career, [00:08:45] if we want to change that and improve. As Emma very well put it. We wanna improve the pipeline of people coming into our industry and we have to go into schools quite early.

[00:08:55] So I was hearing, looking at some research from the charity I worked for, I teach first, [00:09:00] I think something like half of male A level. Students enroll at at least one bat in science for girls that’s lower than 37%. It’s at 37% and the problem that is actually even greater for girls from low income backgrounds, [00:09:15] so they’re actually seven times less likely to choose.

[00:09:18] A mass or science a level compared to boy from the same background. So I think there’s a, there’s actually an even greater issue that than gender when you look at places across the UK, outside of London, [00:09:30] particularly in, in coastal parts of the uk where there’s a kind of increased issue in areas where young people grow up and they’re not maybe connected to areas that have STEM employers nearby.

[00:09:42] So that, that’s an area that I think is [00:09:45] important to, to answer the question about. 

[00:09:46] Alexander: Yep. Completely agree. I think if you don’t have any role models, you know, then it becomes even harder for you to choose on an area and statistics, mathematics, engineering, or [00:10:00] any of the other natural sciences. And I think it’s, we can of course, talk about statistics quite a lot.

[00:10:07] We all need biologists, we need chemists, we need engineers. All kind of other areas in the pharmaceutical [00:10:15] industry as well. Now, you both have been in touch with schools. How is it going to a school? What kind of experience is it? Yeah, it’s a good, 

[00:10:26] Alex: it’s a good question. So I’m totally biased as a [00:10:30] teacher, I think fantastic places to be.

[00:10:33] You walk in the rooms, you go into the school gates, and I think. You have this unified feeling of knowing that everybody who goes into work into a school is there for exactly the same reason, [00:10:45] and it’s actually of words in many different places. I think you do get that in the pharmaceutical industry at GGSK, people are very much like, I’m here.

[00:10:54] To make patients’ lives better, but that feeling is even greater in schools that teachers go in to [00:11:00] improve young people’s backgrounds. Saying that’s the good. The negative is that there is very little time for anything else except the young person’s wellbeing, young person’s education and the curriculum that’s around that.

[00:11:14] [00:11:15] So going in. As a volunteer, it can feel quite daunting because you can often just be left in a waiting room. People are going in and out between corridors, bells are ringing and unless you’ve got a link to the school and a teacher who’s gonna look after you and [00:11:30] arrange for a time for you to go in, it can be quite overwhelming.

[00:11:33] Yeah. The main thing to say from my experience as a volunteer is that schools are extremely busy and just trying to get your foot in the door has been a challenge for us. And our volunteers at PSI. Emma, do you wanna elaborate on that? ’cause that’s something we’ve been [00:11:45] working on 

[00:11:45] Emma: here. We’re, yes. So yeah, I can definitely elaborate on that.

[00:11:48] When we restarted the school’s kind of group that we have now in 2023, we first off did a relaunch webinar and we asked some questions to our PSI [00:12:00] members, gave them opportunity to feedback of. Their experiences with schools outreach or if they had any questions. And as Alex rightly says, a lot of people saying they were struggling to access schools and how do they do that?

[00:12:10] What we have been doing over the last couple of years is building [00:12:15] some connections, some partnerships with some well-known STEM engagement organizations within the uk. So there are actually a lot of. Companies are businesses where it is their sole remit to promote STEM education, and they work with [00:12:30] a lot of schools, a lot of teachers to have volunteering programs that industry professionals can sign up to and take part in and give them those connection to schools.

[00:12:39] So probably one of the most notable ones in the UK is a scheme called STEM learning, [00:12:45] which facilitates us. STEM Ambassadors scheme. When you sign up to be a volunteer with them, they get you a free DBS check, which is like a government police check to make sure that you are safe to work with children in schools, which can be really handy to make sure you can [00:13:00] give that evidence to a school if they require it.

[00:13:02] As well as then essentially connecting you with a jobs board for volunteering opportunities, which is where teachers will put up requests when they want volunteers to come into a school, or even what we’re seeing now is [00:13:15] actually a lot of virtual or hybrid opportunities that schools are requesting. So definitely since that Covid era, we’re seeing a lot more virtual opportunities come through to engage with schools, which that can obviously be really handy ’cause it takes out the need to have [00:13:30] any travel.

[00:13:31] Needing to take time off with your employer to attend a school physically in person, and I’ve found them a lot more easy to manage in the workday. I myself have done a couple of these volunteer, uh, virtual volunteering opportunities [00:13:45] within the last year. One was like a webinar last Christmas where I had to pretend to be a stem elf or Santa, and I had to convince children.

[00:13:56] To vote for me as the chief stem elf. So essentially what I had [00:14:00] to do was take my job as a medical statistician and a Christmas Santa spin on it. So I ended up explaining that my role as a stem elf was helping Santa to run clinical trials to get a [00:14:15] medicine for the reindeer to stop coming down with reindeer flu.

[00:14:18] ’cause you wouldn’t want that on Christmas Eve, would you? So that was a really fun one to really actually, to get me to think about what is it? Those core skills that I do in my job, how can I make that sound fun [00:14:30] and Christmasy when I was going up with against lots of different volunteers from different industries that could speak about how they could help fix Santa’s Slay, or how they could help predict the weather on Christmas.

[00:14:40] The Santa Kaan is root about like there was some really great. Example of [00:14:45] STEM and how you can apply that to Christmas and helping Santa and his reindeer and his elves, which was really fun. And then another opportunity I’ve done this year is where a school had asked for speaking with a student that wanted to study maths at university.

[00:14:58] And actually this was me [00:15:00] just dialing into a teams chat. And there was a student on the other end of a teacher and I presented about five minutes about myself. And then we just had a little chat and she asked me her questions about my job and about university, so it can even be as intimate as that, as a one-on-one [00:15:15] conversation with a student rather than a whole big classroom presentation or a big assembly.

[00:15:19] And I also actually helped STEM learning recently with a training that they were delivering to teachers. So they had some teachers join into a workshop and they had us as volunteers come and [00:15:30] present. Our jobs to this group of teachers on this training course. Again, all done completely, virtually. So I’ve been able to fit these in seamlessly, like on a lunch break or something like that, or after work.

[00:15:41] I haven’t had to worry about travel. So yeah, [00:15:45] I’ve been really enjoying that. I’d love to get into schools, but sometimes that is a little bit harder to try and navigate around the day job. But it’s great that there’s so many more opportunities to do that. And STEM learning is just one provider, one organization.

[00:15:59] We’ve got about. [00:16:00] We’ve got several companies now that we present on our school’s outreach page on our PSI website. With different volunteering themes. So there’s some that are quite specific, having mentoring opportunities that they’re looking for, mentoring or [00:16:15] coaching with young people. Some of them are aimed at specific groups, so like you have maths for girls, so they’re very much aimed at, you’re going and probably speaking to groups of girls to try and promote them about maths.

[00:16:27] There’s loads of great opportunities online [00:16:30] now, so that’s where we are trying to really encourage our members to go find these opportunities and connect. And then sometimes our group also receives individual requests from schools, so what we call can more ad hoc. They might reach out and say they’ve got an event and they’re looking for a [00:16:45] volunteer, and we look to put those on our website under the PSI volunteering opportunity page as well.

[00:16:51] So these can be, yeah. They might be local to you. It’s so hard. We’ve got 2000 plus members though now in PSI, which is great. So we hope that the [00:17:00] opportunities that we can share there might be someone that live local and can support when there’s these in-person requests come up. Yeah, lots of ways to get involved these days, which is really great to see.

[00:17:10] 9:55 AM 

[00:17:12] Alexander: Okay. Good. Thanks so much. How is [00:17:15] it actually being physically at school and being a volunteer? And talking to students in a school, Alex? 

[00:17:23] Alex: Yeah. I think it’s, uh, quite ex exhilarating really. I think, I think some of our [00:17:30] volunteers, their experiences are that, uh, there’s a little bit of unpredictability about an audience, which is true of any audience.

[00:17:37] I know. If giving a talk at a conference, you’re giving a talk at work and you haven’t met the people that you are meeting, then [00:17:45] I know I get nervous. I get nervous every time I do it. I’ve been. Standing up and teaching hundreds and hundreds of lessons. But you know, that I think is the first thing that volunteers feel when they go in present to an audience.

[00:17:57] I, and I also think that when you have done, like [00:18:00] Emma and myself have done, you present you my career, my story, which I think is the thing that engages students the most, then there’s an kind of extra vulnerability there that adds to the nervousness. But I think if you are brave enough to do that, [00:18:15] then you know students are.

[00:18:16] Teachers as well are really grateful to hear what people do. I so many times as a science teacher be teaching something like electric circuits or cell division, and students would put their hands up and say, what [00:18:30] is the actual point of this? And does like me just bamboozled by the question, I’m like, what cell division?

[00:18:36] The very thing that is keeping you alive or electricity, just keeping the lights on. How can you not see the connection? Of course, it’s just one lesson out of six. It’s part [00:18:45] of a long winter term of sums and work they’ve gotta do. And when someone comes in and say, and says, this is my life, this is how I use math and science, it pays the bills, and I love what I do, that is just switches all the lights on in their [00:19:00] head.

[00:19:00] And I think it’s really important being a volunteer in schools. You do get that. Buy back. When you go into school, like I said, you share your story and you see straight away from the engagement and questions that students will have that, that they’re really interested. [00:19:15] And quite often they’ll say, okay, this is the first interesting thing that’s happened, science Lab for a couple of weeks.

[00:19:22] So previously we, I think this has been hard since the pandemic, but we have previously done more interactive [00:19:30] activities, so I know. Steve Mallet from GSK, they used to have these, a asthma peak flow meters to, to run a trial, fake clinical trial. And I know people have really enjoyed doing those kinds of [00:19:45] activities, but I suppose it’s something we ha have struggled with thinking about.

[00:19:50] We’re trying to make it as easy as possible for volunteers to engage with people, so we’re actually moving away from getting. Volunteers to do interactive [00:20:00] activities. ’cause I think that maybe isn’t the most impactful thing that people would do given that teachers are already doing practical science experiments with kids anyway at the moment.

[00:20:09] Alexander: Okay. If I want to be a volunteer and also help with that. [00:20:15] Who do I get into contact with? How do I get in contact with PSI Schools Outreach group? 

[00:20:20] Emma: Yeah, so there’s a couple of different options there. As I said on our PSI website, if you head to the careers homepage and then to the school zone, you’ll find a specific [00:20:30] webpage titled Schools Outreach.

[00:20:31] And on there we’ve tried to coate a lot of information for volunteers about how they can engage with school outreach. We’ve got a template Word document that if you did want to reach out to a local school near you. We’ve written a Word document of [00:20:45] a letter example that you can send into a school or email into a school to express your interest on this page.

[00:20:52] We also have the list of all the different volunteering schemes for organizations, at least within the uk. To start off [00:21:00] with, our plan is to try and expand this in the future, but for now, we’ve at least made these connections in the uk. But as I said, some of these. Opportunities. Whilst they are UK companies, the opportunities themselves, if they’ve got virtual talks, anyone can sign [00:21:15] up to them or virtual opportunities.

[00:21:16] They’ve got no restriction on that. A good example is for the last couple of years, PSI has been sponsoring places on a virtual engagement competition called. I’m a scientist that is a chat-based competition. So actually that [00:21:30] takes away any fear of presenting, ’cause you’re speaking in chat rooms with students, 30 minute chats at a time, and yeah, it’s completely virtual so you can be.

[00:21:37] Anywhere in the world, so it doesn’t matter for that. But yeah, we’ve got a list of all these volunteering schemes and if you’re interested in those, you can just sign up with them [00:21:45] directly. Some of these schemes we have got a unique like PSI referral link on our website as it were. So it means that we can track if you are a PSI member and you sign up, but you don’t need to get permission from schools before you do.

[00:21:56] So you can just go ahead, selfer, sign up to become a [00:22:00] volunteer and start exploring the opportunities. On the outreach page, we also have a link to our current educational resources that we have developed for volunteers to help support them. So as Alex said, we’ve got. A couple of career talk templates at the moment for year [00:22:15] six plus.

[00:22:15] So at the end of primary school, early secondary school, and then year 11 plus. So that’s when you are starting to look at college level students. And then we also have some classroom workshops. It’s great for volunteers to want to take these workshops in, and I know that schools. Do sometimes still ask for [00:22:30] these interactive sessions, but we appreciate that sometimes takes a little bit more preparation.

[00:22:35] So we are currently doing some work behind the scenes of which Alex is actually leading within a sub-team to develop our resources and hopefully make it as simple as [00:22:45] possible in the future for our members to come in and pick up these materials and present them. A school and we’ve also got a couple of posters.

[00:22:53] If after all of that you are still struggling or you’ve still got some specific questions, you can always reach out to the school’s team [00:23:00] at the email address careers@psiweb.org, where one of the volunteers will be able to pick up and speak to you directly or answer any specific questions that you may have.

[00:23:10] That, yeah, really the best thing is just to. Be curious. [00:23:15] Be open. Think about your contacts. Do you have any family or friends with children that you can ask if they need someone to go into your school? Do you have a school nearby your home, nearby your workplace? That might be looking for volunteers outside of what is [00:23:30] also advertised in these larger schemes as well.

[00:23:33] There’s lots of ways that you can get involved. We also now have as well for PSI members, a new newsletter that we send out every half a term. Focused on schools outreach. So in that we [00:23:45] try and give some tips, we highlight you to relevant days of interest that might help inspire you to go and deliver a school activity.

[00:23:53] Come at the moment, we are in something called National Careers Week within the uk, which is a week focused on [00:24:00] in schools, on focusing on careers education, and looking at careers pathways starting today. Actually is British Science Week that runs for the next week. And so as part of that, we are actually doing a webinar for students and teachers next week [00:24:15] when these relevant kind of related science days of interest come up, that’s a really good opportunity.

[00:24:21] To try and connect with teachers to say, Hey, are you looking for somebody to speak to your students during science week? And for example, I can tell you that through the STEM [00:24:30] learning opportunity, there was lots of requests from teachers asking for volunteers to come in during science week because they’ve got goals to deliver activities on these workshops that you have to actually think about these things quite far in advance.

[00:24:43] It’s no good going a [00:24:45] week before science week, oh, hey, I wanna do something. Let me reach out to a teacher. Some of these schools have been having Science Week requests out since September, since the start of the academic year, because they have to plan those lesson plans in advance. So the best thing to do [00:25:00] is if you are interested, engage early on as possible.

[00:25:02] I think in the school year before things get too. Stepped up and busy. If we try and reach out in the summer term, which is around exams, and they’re starting to wind down, it’s a little bit harder to [00:25:15] get into the calendar, I think, with the teachers. So trying to align your availability with the academic calendar that starts in September and thinking about it then is a really good way to hopefully try and build that in.

[00:25:29] [00:25:30] To your plans. So yeah, we have those reminders in our newsletter and you can sign up to that on your PSI member Glue Up profile. It’s the PSI Outreach Champions Distribution list. If you are a member of that, you’ll get these hopefully helpful newsletters every half [00:25:45] term as well. 

[00:25:45] Alexander: Put all of that information and links and emails and all of that will put into the show notes searches.

[00:25:52] Hello, over to the effective statistician.com for this podcast episode today, and you’ll find all of that. [00:26:00] And I hope, very much hope that all the success that you have had in UK over the last years, actually decades now can be replicated to other countries as well, would be absolutely awesome. 

[00:26:14] Emma: That [00:26:15] thinner future for schools.

[00:26:16] We would love to one day tap into our wider membership network into Europe and beyond. So. Right now we are just focusing on refreshing our materials in English, but we appreciate that if we are reaching out into Europe [00:26:30] and beyond, having our materials in English might not be suitable for some students.

[00:26:34] Particularly, we are seeing more and more requests coming through at a primary school level, so those younger students, the level of English might not be there. My dream would be one day we can translate some of our materials [00:26:45] into key European languages to help support PSI members, but also at the same time, we are not.

[00:26:51] Excluding US to UK only. If we’ve got PSI members outside the uk, you are more than welcome to take our materials. If you want to translate them, that would be [00:27:00] great. Please share them back to us. Please get in touch with us at the email, because then we can start using that already. If you want to create your own materials.

[00:27:08] Why not? You are recommended to do, and we have an option on our website where we encourage members to share any [00:27:15] workshops, any careers talks, any materials they present, so that we can facilitate a member sharing library, as it were. And yeah, if you’ve got, you can build up those connections locally, that would be great.

[00:27:25] If you know of any STEM engagement organizations local in your [00:27:30] country. Please do share them with us. We just don’t have those connections established yet ’cause they’re a little bit harder to to form if you are not based in those countries. But definitely this, we encourage all PSI members, regardless of your location, to [00:27:45] think about engaging with schools.

[00:27:47] And we hope, yeah, in the near future that we will have the resources to support that for them as well. 

[00:27:54] Alexander: Thanks so much for all of that information. Thanks, Emma. Thanks, Alex for [00:28:00] this awesome presentation of the school outreach program. If you’re a listener, I can highly encourage you to become part of this movement to speak up for stem.

[00:28:14] [00:28:15] Alex mentioned also a couple of reasons, especially for girls, and even more for girls from. Socioeconomically deprived areas that there’s a lot of potential for them to [00:28:30] get into STEM and increase their chances of having such a nice career in the pharmaceutical industry. Alex, Emma, thanks so much for you showing up here today, and greetings to all [00:28:45] your colleagues within the schools ostrich group of PSI.

[00:28:49] Alex: Thanks Jake for time to speak to 

[00:28:50] Alexander: us. 

[00:28:51] Emma: Thanks. Thank you.

[00:28:58] Alexander: This show was created [00:29:00] in association with PSI. Thanks to Rain and her team at VVS with the show, the background, and thank you for listening. Reach your potential lead grade science and serve patients. Just be an effective [00:29:15] [00:29:30] statistician.