THE JOINT STATISTICAL MEETINGS
The JSM (Joint Statistical Meetings) is a conference sponsored by
five large North American statistical organizations that is held
annually in August. This year the JSM was in San Francisco and
was attended by almost 6000 statisticians from around the world.
Among the many sessions at the JSM were 22 sessions that pre-
sented around 110 talks related to statistics education. The
talks I attended always reflected teachers' dedication to helping
students to understand statistics and almost always provided use-
ful new perspectives on statistics teaching.
THE SATS
The most exciting talk at the JSM for me was presented by Candace
Schau (pronounced "shaw"), who discussed her test for measuring
students' attitudes toward statistics (Survey of Attitudes Toward
Statistics -- SATS). The test is designed to be administered to
students twice -- at the beginning of a course and at the end.
The test contains twenty-eight questions (items) that reflect
four subscales. The subscales measure properties of the students
that Schau has labeled Affect, Cognitive Competence, Value, and
Difficulty. Students can usually complete the test in under ten
minutes.
USEFULNESS OF THE SATS
As I discuss in a 2002 paper, I believe a reasonable first goal
of an introductory statistics course is
To give students a lasting appreciation of the vital role
of the field of statistics in empirical research.
Under this goal, the SATS is useful because it enables us to ac-
curately MEASURE students' appreciation of statistics (using the
Value subscale of the SATS). It is especially useful to measure
each student's appreciation immediately before and immediately
after a course because the difference between the two scores for
a student is a precise gauge of the effect of the course on the
student.
It seems reasonable to say
The greater the average improvement in SATS Value sub-
scale scores as a result of a course, the higher (in one
reasonable sense) the quality of the course.
Thus the SATS is a useful test to help us to improve statistics
education.
Most statisticians are familiar with the experience of revealing
their vocation to someone at a party, and having that person say
that they once took a statistics course, and it was the worst
course they ever took, or some similar negative comment. This
supports the view that a person's ATTITUDES toward statistics
(which can often be negative) tend to persist throughout the per-
son's lifetime. (This point was suggested at the JSM by Sterling
Hilton.) In contrast, much of the KNOWLEDGE students learn in an
introductory statistics course is forgotten, often with a steep
forgetting curve that begins when the student finishes the final
exam.
Since ATTITUDES toward statistics generally persist more strongly
in a person's consciousness than KNOWLEDGE about statistics, and
since students' attitudes toward statistics are often negative,
this suggests that it's at least as important to study how to im-
prove students' attitudes toward statistics as it is to study how
to impart specific statistical knowledge. This point further
suggests that the SATS is a useful test to help us to improve
statistics education.
SATS AVAILABILITY
The SATS and supporting material are available without charge
from Dr. Schau's web site (Schau 2003). In addition, Dr. Schau's
consulting firm is available to assist with projects related to
the SATS.
INTERPRETING SATS SCORES
A reasonable rudimentary approach to interpreting an administra-
tion of the SATS is to subtract each student's pre-test score for
each sub-scale from his or her corresponding post-test score and
then to study the univariate distribution (across students) of
each of the four differences. (The SATS is designed so that such
subtraction is reasonable.) We would like the mean of each of
these distributions to be (in the appropriate direction) as far
away from zero as possible.
(If we wish, we can also perform a statistical test of whether
the mean change in attitude scores is different from zero, or
different from some other fixed value. However, from the point
of view of improving statistics education such tests are less im-
portant because it is relative differences in scores between ap-
propriately compared teaching methods that are important, not ab-
solute scores. Relative differences in scores are best obtained
in experiments, as discussed below.)
WHAT IF ATTITUDES GET WORSE?
A teacher may administer the SATS and find that students' atti-
tudes are generally worse at the end of the course than at the
beginning. If so, what can the teacher do?
First, it seems clear that something can be done. This is be-
cause (as I think most readers will agree) the field of statis-
tics is a vital cornerstone of science (and also of all other
types of empirical research). Thus the field clearly merits se-
rious respect and appreciation. Thus if students' attitudes to-
ward statistics become worse after taking a particular statistics
course, this merely reflects the fact that the teacher (like many
others) has not yet found a good approach to instilling a strong
sense of the value of our field in students. When the teacher
finds this approach, the students' attitudes toward statistics
will improve.
A reasonable way to find the best approach to teaching an intro-
ductory statistics course is to study the literature of modern
statistics education, which contains many proposals for improving
the introductory course. Careful implementation of the most
promising of these proposals is almost certain to improve stu-
dents' attitudes toward statistics. Appendix A gives some entry
points to the literature.
DISENTANGLING APPROACHES TO STATISTICS EDUCATION
I believe we will disentangle the many approaches to teaching the
introductory statistics course and discover how to optimize stu-
dents' attitudes toward statistics (and perhaps optimize other
important response variables) through the use of standard statis-
tical tools in empirical research, with particular emphasis on
designed experiments. Carefully designed experiments to compare
approaches to teaching statistics appear to be the best way to
find the best approaches to help people to recognize the useful-
ness of our field.
(Appendix B discusses some technical aspects of the design and
analysis of experiments in statistics education.)
Designed experiments in statistics education will follow and ex-
pand the leadership that is currently being provided by Hilton,
Christensen, Collings, Hadfield, Schaalje, and Tolley (1999).
Don Macnaughton
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Donald B. Macnaughton MatStat Research Consulting Inc
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Toronto, Canada
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APPENDIX A: REFERENCES TO MATERIAL IN STATISTICS EDUCATION
For introductory statistics teachers interested in improving
their courses, here are some links to material about statistics
education. First is a list of some journals that specialize
wholly or partly in articles about statistics education:
- JOURNAL OF STATISTICS EDUCATION. This online journal is aimed
at statistics educators.
http://www.amstat.org/publications/jse/
- STATISTICS EDUCATION RESEARCH JOURNAL. Aimed at improving sta-
tistics education.
http://fehps.une.edu.au/F/s/curric/cReading/serj/index.html
- CHANCE. This magazine-style journal is aimed at "everyone".
http://www.amstat.org/publications/chance/
- STATS. Aimed at students.
http://www.amstat.org/publications/stats/
- TEACHING STATISTICS. Aimed at teachers of students aged up to
19 who use statistics in their work.
http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0141-982X
- "Teachers' Corner" of THE AMERICAN STATISTICIAN. This section
of the journal publishes general articles about teaching sta-
tistics.
http://www.amstat.org/publications/tas/
- "Statistics Teacher Network." A newsletter aimed at statistics
teachers.
http://www.bio.ri.ccf.org/ASA/stn.html
The American Statistical Association has an active section on
Statistical Education that regularly makes helpful contributions
to the advancement of statistical education. Information about
this group is available at
http://www.stat.ncsu.edu/stated/homepage.html and information
about joining is at http://www.amstat.org/membership/join.html
The International Association of Statistical Education (IASE) is
an affiliate of the International Statistical Institute. The
IASE also regularly makes helpful contributions to the advance-
ment of statistical education, including sponsoring an important
conference on statistical education every four years. Informa-
tion about this group is available at
http://www.cbs.nl/isi/iase.htm
The American Statistical Association has published a set of care-
fully developed formal recommendations about teaching statistics
in undergraduate major and minor programs. These are available
at http://www.amstat.org/education/Curriculum_Guidelines.html
Here are some general books about teaching statistics:
Gordon, F., and Gordon, S. (eds.) 1992. _Statistics for the Twenty-
First Century, MAA Notes No. 26._ Washington, DC: Mathematical
Association of America.
Hawkins, A., Jolliffe, F., and Glickman, L. 1992. _Teaching
Statistical Concepts._ London: Longman.
Hoaglin, D. C., and Moore, D. S. (eds.) 1992. _Perspectives on
Contemporary Statistics, MAA Notes No 21._ Washington, DC:
Mathematical Association of America.
Moore, T. L. (ed.) 2000. _Teaching Statistics: Resources for
Undergraduate Instructors, MAA Notes No. 52._ Washington, DC:
Mathematical Association of America.
Many good introductory statistics textbooks are available. Here
are some introductory textbooks I have studied that I like:
De Veaux, R. D., Velleman, P. F., and Bock, D. E. _Intro Stats._
Boston, MA: Pearson.
Freedman, D., Pisani, R., and Purves, R. 1998. _Statistics_ (3rd
ed). New York: W. W. Norton.
Moore, D. S. 2003. _The Basic Practice of Statistics_ (3rd ed). New
York: W. H. Freeman.
Rossman, A. J. and Chance, B. L. 2001. _Workshop Statistics:
Discovery with Data_ (2nd ed). Emeryville, CA: Key College
Publishing.
Utts, J. M. and Heckard, R. F. 2004. _Mind on Statistics_ (2nd ed).
Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole/Thomson.
Watkins, A. E., Scheaffer, R. L., and Cobb, G. W. 2004.
_Statistics in Action: Understanding a World of Data._
Emeryville, CA: Key Curriculum Press.
Finally, I have made some suggestions for improving the introduc-
tory statistics course. Discussion is available at
http://www.matstat.com/teach/
APPENDIX B
Because appendix B is of less general interest I give only its
title and a link here:
Appendix B: Technical Issues in the Analysis of Statistics
Education Experiments
- at http://www.matstat.com/teach/p0046.htm#b
The full post is at
http://www.matstat.com/teach/p0046.htm
REFERENCES
Hilton, S. C., Christensen, H. B., Collins, B. J., Hadfield, K.,
Schaalje, B., and Tolley, D. 1999. "A Randomized, Controlled
Experiment to Assess Technological Innovations in the Class-
room on Student Outcomes: An Overview of a Clinical Trial in
Education," in _American Statistical Association Proceedings of
the Section on Statistical Education,_ pp. 209-212. (See also
the subsequent two articles in the same Proceedings volume.)
Macnaughton, D. B. 2002. "The Introductory Statistics Course:
The Entity-Property-Relationship Approach." Available at
http://www.matstat.com/teach/
Schau, Candace. 2003. "Survey of Attitudes Toward Statistics"
Available at http://www.unm.edu/~cschau/satshomepage.htm
.
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