A way of teaching statistics: An approach to flexible learning (original) (raw)
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Teaching and Learning of Statistics
The Proceedings of the 12th International Congress on Mathematical Education, 2015
Being able to provide sound evidence-based arguments and critically evaluate data-based claims are important skills that all citizens should have. It is not surprising therefore that the study of statistics at all educational levels is gaining more students and drawing more attention than it has in the past. The study of statistics provides students with tools, ideas and dispositions to use in order to react intelligently to information in the world around them. Reflecting this need to improve students' ability to think statistically, statistical literacy and reasoning are becoming part of the mainstream school and university curriculum in many countries. As a consequence, statistics education is a growing and becoming an exciting field of research and development. Statistics at school level is usually taught in the mathematics classroom in connection with learning probability. Topic Study Group 12 (TSG-12) included probabilistic aspects in learning statistics, whereas research with a specific focus on learning probability was discussed in TSG-11 of ICME-12.
International Statistical Review / Revue Internationale de Statistique, 1995
Research in the areas of psychology, statistical education, and mathematics education is reviewed and the results applied to the teaching of college-level statistics courses. The argument is made that statistics educators need to determine what it is they really want students to learn, to modify their teaching according to suggestions from the research literature, and to use assessment to determine if their teaching is effective and if students are developing statistical understanding and competence.
Introducing the emerging discipline of statistics education
Increasing attention has been given over the last decade by the statistics, mathematics and science education communities to the development of statistical literacy and numeracy skills of all citizens and the enhancement of statistics education at all levels. This paper introduces the emerging discipline of statistics education and considers its role in the development of these important skills. The paper begins with information on the growing importance of statistics in today's society, schools and colleges, summarizes unique challenges students face as they learn statistics, and makes a case for the importance of collaboration between mathematicians and statisticians in preparing teachers to teach students how to understand and reason about data. We discuss the differences and interrelations between statistics and mathematics, recognizing that mathematics is the discipline that has traditionally included instruction in statistics. We conclude with an argument that statistics should be viewed as a bridge between mathematics and science and should be taught in both disciplines.
Approaches to Broadening the Statistics Curricula
Recently, there has been a lot of discussion about what a statistics curriculum should contain, and which elements are important for different types of students. For the most part, attention has been understandably focused on the introductory statistics course. This course services thousands of students who take only one statistics course. In the United States, the course typically fulfills a general education requirement of the university or a degree program. There has also been considerable activity regarding the use of computers to present statistical concepts and to leverage the Web and course management software to interact with students. Recently, there has been debate as to whether statisticians should make ambitious changes using resampling, the bootstrap, and simulation in place of the more traditional mathematical topics that are seen as the fundamentals or origins of the field (Cobb, 2007). It is unclear that we are achieving the goals of basic statistical literacy by focusing on formulae or even by concentrating almost exclusively on methodology. Instead, we believe the field and students would be significantly better served by showing the challenges and applicability of statistics to everyday life, policy, and scientific decision making in many contexts, and by teaching students how to think statistically and creatively. In contrast to the activity at the introductory level, there has been much less attention paid to updating the statistics curricula for other categories of students. While smaller in number, these students—undergraduate majors and minors, masters, and doctoral students—are very important, as they are the ones who will use statistics to further the field and improve the quality of research. Other disciplines (e.g., biology, geo graphy, and political and social sciences) are increasingly appreciating the importance of statistics and including statistical material in their curricula. Further, statistics has become a broader subject and field. However, the statistics curricula at these levelshave not changed much past the introductory courses. Students taking courses for just 2 years may not see any modern statistical methods, leading them to a view that the important statistical ideas have all been developed. More importantly, few students will see how these methods are really used, and even fewer will know at the end of their studies what a statistician actually does. This is because statisticians very rarely attempt to teach this; instead, they labor over the details of various methodologies. The statistics curricula are based on presenting an intellectual infrastructure in order to understand the statistical method. This has significant consequences for improved quantitative literacy. As the practice of science and statistics research continues to change, its perspective and attitudes must also change so as to realize the field's potential and maximize the important influence that statistical thinking has on scientific endeavors. To a large extent, this means learning from the past and challenging the status quo. Instead of teaching the same concepts with varying degrees of mathematical rigor, statisticians need to address what is missing from the curricula. In our work, we look at what statistics students might do and howstatistics programs could change to allow graduates to attain their potential.
This chapter presents a literature review of theories used to frame and underpin Statistics Education Research. The aim is to describe, characterize and arrange the nature and use of theories in SER and hint at some potential trends and required directions for further theorizing the SER discipline. The review includes empirical research papers, published from 2004 to 2015, and focuses on students’ learning of statistics or probability at the primary and secondary school level. The number of papers that fulfilled our inclusion criteria was 35.
and Learning of Introductory Statistics at the College Level? A Review of the Literature
2009
and Beng Chang all rights reserved. This text may be freely shared among individuals, but it may not be republished in any medium without express written consent from the authors and advance notification of the editor. Key Words: Statistics Education Research; Teaching and learning; College students. Since the first studies on the teaching and learning of statistics appeared in the research literature, the scholarship in this area has grown dramatically. Given the diversity of disciplines, methodology, and orientation of the studies that may be classified as "statistics education research, " summarizing and critiquing this body of work for teachers of statistics is a challenging and important endeavor. In this paper, a representative subset of studies related to the teaching and learning of statistics in introductory, non-calculus based college courses is reviewed. As a result of this review, and in an effort to improve the teaching and learning of statistics at the introd...
2011
In these two papers we review teaching statistics, statistical education and related outreach activities by a range of providers since the beginning of the last century. We discuss the extent and form of relevant published papers, books and conferences and give examples of where these have influenced teaching practice. In this part we show that by learning the lessons that (i) statistical and mathematical thinking are different and (ii) the goal of statistics of getting information from real data in context are both prerequisites for improving statistical literacy in people of all ages.