Dear R-teaching list:
I would like to put forward for your consideration an issue which is not R
related, but statistics-teaching related. Although i know full well that this
list is intended for discussion of the use of R in teaching statistics, I also
know that most (if not all) of you out there are highly qualified statistics
teachers, and as such, I'd like to know your opinion on this issue:
As a statistics instructor in a open university (distance education), part of
my job functions consist in grading exams written at the central level in my
institution and presented by students nationwide. Recently, i had to grade an
exam of which the first two questions ran like this (again, i did not write
this exam):
1) The following is a sample of the duration (in minutes) of time intervals
between queries to a data base:
91 86 71 79 51 51 67 60 79 85
68 86 53 45 86 71 82 88 72 67
51 51 75 81 76 80 75 76 82 49
66 83 84 82 84 76 53 75 70 55
What is the probability that the mean time between queries is more than 72.5
minutes?
2) For a certain region of the country, the rainfall measurements (in mm)
during the last 15 years are the following:
580 575 400 750 428 636 825 360
850 590 875 735 920 950 550
What is the probability that the average rainfall during the last 15 years is
less than 625 mm?
Considering that these are exam questions for an introductory statistical
inference course (non bayesian), what are your objections, as a teacher, to the
way these questions are posed? If you had to grade exams with such questions,
and it is not in your power to cancel this exam and re-schedule for another
one, how would you grade your pupils?
Once again, please excuse me for posting these non-R related and very absurd
questions for your consideration. However, i'd really like to know the
experts' opinion on this.
Thanks in advance,
josé romero
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