"Paul W. Jeffries" wrote:
What are
> list members views on teaching students to use tables. In the computer
> age, tables are an anachronism. The vast majority of students will never
> use a t table.
Were it only so... Unfortunately, most universities are not set up to
give *examinations* using a computer for large service courses.
Moreover, it is sad but true that many students in large service courses
simply do not want to be there, and in the absence of any real "buy-in"
they are likely to do uninvigilated work by the easiest means available
- plagiarism. Thus dumping examinations is not an option. Finally,
students would get very angry if the professor announced "we can't put X
on the examination and will examine you on Y instead; however, X is more
important and we'll spend most of the classroom time on X." (To be more
precise: if X is studied to the _exclusion_ of Y almost all students
would get, quite justifiably, angry; but some have a very low threshold
indeed for _any_ classroom time spent on _anything_ that does not
contribute directly to passing the examination.)
Until such a time as universities such as mine are set up to examine
300 students using computers, while providing proper security [so, in my
opinion, requiring each student to bring their own laptop is NOT an
option, at least for lower-level exams for which an open-book format is
rarely appropriate. Advanced scientific calculators are not impossible,
but I am not sure that practicing scientists will use these any more
than they use tables!] the t-table wil be an unfortunate holdover.
I have, BTW, prepared a t table
http://www.amstat.org/publications/jse/v5n2/dawson.html
designed to provide a much wider range of p-values (and a more realistic
set of n values), allowing more up-to-date practice with prehistoric
technology.
-Robert Dawson
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