Conceptual thinking in national statistics offices

Abstract

This paper attempts to define the conceptual thinking skills needed by staff producing statistics within a National Statistics Office. The overarching concepts of responsibility or utility that are specific to official statistics are discussed as well as what is needed to understand or develop the conceptual and measurement frameworks that form the basis of official statistics. It is argued that conceptual thinkers not only need to be able to translate the real world into models that simplify reality and make it measurable for statistical purposes but they also need to be able to reason with statistics and communicate what they mean to others. Conceptual thinking and the skills needed to create new conceptual frameworks are developed primarily through experience which can be accelerated by exposure to those conceptual frameworks already in use and provision of opportunities to `practice' the process of developing conceptual frameworks. Survey specific concepts are not discussed except to illustrate some of our proposals.