By Samantha Estrada, Martinez, Erica, Garrido, Sergio, Fernandez Da Silva, Ana (University of Texas at Tyler)
Information
In recent years, the introductory statistics course has become a quantitative undergraduate requirement at the same time academia in general has become more reliant on adjunct instructors. This research will focus specifically on adjunct instructors who work part-time or seasonally teaching introductory statistics courses. One of the recommendations from Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education (GAISE) is to 'use technology to explore concepts and analyze data.' In this poster, we examine how adjunct instructors of statistics use technology with their students. In this qualitative study, participants were recruited three different ways: r/AskAcademia reddit discussion board, the Consortium for the Advancement of Undergraduate Statistics Education (CAUSE) mailing list, and via snowball sampling. A total of fifteen adjunct instructors of statistics participated in semi-structured interviews via Zoom. A variety of fields were represented: psychology, nursing, business among others. The interviews were transcribed, and member checking was completed. What adjuncts instructors considered technology varied. The following themes emerged: Publisher websites for homework problems were common for adjuncts with large course sections. For those adjunct instructors that utilize data projects in their course software varied from Excel to R. It was noteworthy that teaching through the use of simulations was a predominant theme from the adjunct instructors recruited through CAUSE. This poster will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each method as described by adjunct instructors. Audiences will gain insight on the variety of strategies used by adjunct instructors to implement technology in their statistics courses.
- Share the experiences of adjunct instructors of introductory statistics courses.
- Share the experiences of adjunct instructors of introductory statistics courses with regards to technology, and the use of data in the classroom.
- Focus on solutions for the use of technology that has worked for adjunct instructors with large courses.